Wednesday, 2 September 2026

A United Nations Environment Programme report titled Limiting Overshoot projects a breach of the Paris Agreement's 1.5-degree Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) warming threshold in the near term, with deadly climate impacts intensifying as it happens, Inside Climate News reported.

The report frames the question as how far and how long temperatures run above that line rather than whether the line holds.

Emissions on their present trajectory point to warming of 2.7 to 3 degrees Celsius by 2100, according to scientific calculations cited by Inside Climate News.

Full delivery of what governments have already promised under the Paris Agreement changes that arithmetic. Warming under that pathway lands near 1.7 or 1.8 degrees Celsius, an outcome that eases the return below 1.5 degrees Celsius.

"We must make the overshoot as small and short as possible," said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, adding that both the height of the temperature rise and its duration above 1.5 degrees Celsius have to be limited.

A new UN report sets out a three-phase route back to 1.5C of warming after an overshoot, pairing near-term emissions cuts with a later period of net-negative emissions, Climate Home News reported.

The authors describe an immediate response of deep and rapid emissions cuts alongside urgent protection for the most vulnerable as warming approaches and passes 1.5C. That is followed by a coping and containment phase centred on reaching net-zero emissions and building resilience while temperatures peak. The final stage is long-term resilience, built on net-negative emissions through carbon dioxide removal (CDR) and lasting adaptation as temperatures eventually decline.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for the 1.5C overshoot to be "as small and short as possible", and urged governments to over-deliver on national climate plans and net-zero commitments.

The scale of the gap is set by measures already paid for and operating. Emissions measures that are funded and in force put the world on course for around 2.8C of warming by 2100, according to a previous UNEP finding cited in the reporting.

The report also quantifies physical consequences. Glaciers could lose more than a quarter of their remaining mass by 2100, according to the report. Global food production could fall by as much as 14% by 2050 without effective adaptation, the report warns.

The framing treats overshoot as inevitable rather than avoidable, shifting the policy question from whether temperatures breach 1.5C to how far above it they go and for how long. The dependence of the third phase on carbon dioxide removal makes CDR capacity a condition of the return path, not an optional supplement to it.

The world will exceed 1.5 degrees of warming within years, according to a United Nations report covered by RenewEconomy, exposing communities to more extreme heatwaves, cyclones, floods, fires and rising sea levels.

The 141-page study, issued by the United Nations Environment Programme under the title Limiting Overshoot, found that action to cut greenhouse gas emissions had not moved fast enough to keep temperatures below the Paris Agreement's 1.5-degree target.

Under current policies, warming is projected to reach a median of 2.6 degrees by 2100, RenewEconomy reported. The most optimistic pathway, which assumes every nation meets its pledges and long-term net-zero targets, predicted a peak of 1.8 degrees.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for accelerating the phase-out of fossil fuels and the renewables revolution, slashing methane pollution, and protecting land, forest and oceans.

Dr Simon Bradshaw, COP31 lead at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said the report shows "we are now in bloody dangerous territory".

The gap between the two scenarios sets the terms for the pledge arithmetic ahead: 2.6 degrees on current settings against 1.8 degrees if commitments are delivered in full.

Civil society groups want the new Just Transition Mechanism to come to life at COP31 in Antalya and take shape in 2027, according to Climate Home News. The same groups played a central part in securing the agreement in Brazil to set up the mechanism.

The negotiating fault line is procedural. Russia, Arab nations and a group of large emerging nations pushed for the Just Transition Work Programme review and the mechanism to be handled separately, a split they believe would make it easier to limit the scope of the mechanism, Climate Home News reported. The African Group argued for joint work between the two processes.

At the mid-year climate negotiations in Bonn, just transition was one of the few key issues on which governments reached consensus, including on how to review the progress of the Just Transition Work Programme (JTWP), according to Climate Home News.

An informal workshop for governments and NGOs to exchange views on the JTWP and the mechanism has been organised from September 30 to October 2 in Sydney.

The JTWP was set up in 2022 and launched a year later, with the aim of discussing how to achieve a green economic and social shift that is fair, from the global down to the local level.

Speaking at the High-Level Political Forum in New York in July, UN Secretary General António Guterres said: "We need to support the countries, communities and workers that depend on fossil fuels throughout the transition".

Emissions from Sasol's Secunda plant are linked to roughly 1,000 premature deaths each year, according to research reported by Semafor Net Zero.

The Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, a Finland-based nonprofit, put the overall health cost of the plant's emissions at nearly USD 1 billion in a study cited by Semafor Net Zero.

Sasol is widely recognized as the world's largest single-site emitter of greenhouse gases, Semafor Net Zero reported.

The company also faces legal exposure. Regulators said last month they were preparing to reinstate criminal charges against Sasol over alleged unlawful discharges of chemical waste into a river, according to Semafor Net Zero.

Shutting Secunda carries its own price tag. A University of Cape Town study warned that a rushed closure of the plant could wipe USD 550 million off South Africa's USD 400 billion economy, per Semafor Net Zero.

That trade-off sits inside a power system with few near-term substitutes. Coal supplies more than 80% of South Africa's electricity, Semafor Net Zero reported.