World faces ‘irrecoverable overshoot’ on warming, report warns
12.11.2026
The world is heading for an “irrecoverable overshoot” on dangerous global warming unless governments reject fossil fuels and start rapidly cutting emissions, a report has warned.
The latest update from the Climate Action Tracker (CAT) initiative, released as countries meet for the UN Climate Conference (COP31) in Turkey, warns that collective climate action has stalled for the fifth consecutive year.
There are some positive signs, with clean electricity meeting all additional global demand for power in 2025, China and India deploying renewables at a record pace, the electric vehicle roll out reaching new highs and deforestation in the Amazon falling sharply.
But the report from CAT warns progress on deploying alternatives to fossil fuels – which cause most of the greenhouse gas emissions driving global warming when they are burned for transport, heating, power and industry – is not happening fast enough.
Increasing demand for energy and new fossil fuel infrastructure being built have led to still rising emissions, the CAT report warns.
It finds that, with the policies on tackling climate change and driving clean energy and technologies that governments have in place today, the world is on track for 2.7 degrees Celsius of warming by 2100 – up slightly from 2.6 degrees last year and the same as the years 2021 to 2024.
If governments met 2030 and 2035 targets to cut emissions under the Paris Agreement – a global treaty which aims to curb warming to 1.5 degrees to avoid the most dangerous impacts of climate change – warming would still be 2.6 degrees, the same as last year.
Under an optimistic scenario in which countries meet all their pledges, targets, long term, and “net zero” targets to cut emissions to zero overall, the world would see warming of 1.9 degrees by the end of the century.
The world is set to exceed the Paris target of 1.5 degrees of warming in the next few years, and experts warn there is now a need to act to limit the size and duration of the overshoot and bring temperatures down to below 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial temperatures by 2100.
Bill Hare, chief executive of CAT partner organization Climate Analytics, said: “The stark choice for governments is to either continue to support the fossil fuel industry, which would consign humanity to insurmountable economic damages, rising mortality from heat and climate-driven diseases and disasters that they are unable to adapt to – or pivot to the solutions which are available and cheaper than ever.
“The imminence of breaching 1.5 degrees cannot be an excuse to open the door to defeatism – the focus has to be on accelerating action to limit the magnitude and duration of overshoot.
“Every increment of warming above 1.5 degrees means even more significant consequences across climate, nature and human systems.”
Scientists warn that exceeding 1.5 degrees of warming will lead to more severe weather extremes such as deadly heatwaves, floods, storms and drought, rising sea levels and the potential for catastrophic and irreversible collapse of natural systems such as coral reefs and rainforests.
Analysis published earlier this week by the Global Carbon Budget initiative has suggested a slight decline in carbon emissions from fossil fuels this year, of 0.4%, driven by expansion of solar and wind power and the Iran conflict.
Niklas Hohne, of CAT partner organization NewClimate Institute, said: “With the closure of the Strait of Hormuz exposing our vulnerability to geopolitical shocks, the case for renewables and electrification has never been stronger – and it does appear that global emissions could be on the verge of a peak and a much faster decline than we had previously thought.”
But Climate Analytics policy analyst and lead author of the report Sarah Heck warned that collectively governments are “simply not moving fast enough to adopt the policies that would enable us to escape from the emerging overshoot trap”.
“Worse, several are taking their foot off the accelerator and slowing their climate action – or in cases such as the US, Canada and New Zealand – rolling it back at a staggering level,” she added.
That means long-term warming is expected to cross the 1.5 degrees limit in around 2030, CAT said.
To hold the overshoot of the 1.5 degrees threshold to the minimum still possible, the report calculates that emission reductions have to speed up from around 4% a year to 2030, then 7% a year in the first half of the 2030s and 9% a year over 2035-50.
That compares with the 7% drop in carbon emissions from fossil fuels seen in 2020 as a result of Covid-19 lockdowns across the world.
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