UNEP: the world will cross 1.5°C, but can still limit the overshoot
On 2 September 2026 the UN Environment Programme published Limiting Overshoot: Navigating Exceedance, a report that confirms what many scientists feared: global warming will pass 1.5°C within the next few years. In the best-case scenarios, temperatures would peak at around 1.8°C; most projections exceed 2°C.
The report proposes an "overshoot, peak and decline" pathway: immediate and deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, especially methane; reaching net zero; stronger adaptation measures; and carefully governed carbon dioxide removal to bring temperatures back down over time.
Every fraction of a degree matters. Above 1.5°C, the risks of extreme weather, ecosystem collapse and irreversible tipping points, such as the destabilisation of ice sheets or the degradation of the Amazon, grow significantly. As UN Secretary-General António Guterres put it, the overshoot above 1.5 degrees must be made as small and as short as possible.
The report arrives ahead of this year's climate summit. For social ecology, the lesson is that the climate crisis is inseparable from the economic model that produces it, and that the response must be collective, fair and immediate.