Nairobi, Kenya · 4 November 2025 — The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) released its 16th annual Emissions Gap Report on 4 November 2025, titled Off Target, delivering a sobering assessment of global climate ambition just days before COP30 convened in Belém, Brazil. The report's central finding: despite incremental improvements in some national climate pledges, the world remains on a trajectory toward 2.3–2.5°C of warming this century — far above the Paris Agreement's 1.5°C aspiration and its 2°C upper limit.
The report, produced by an international team of 88 scientists across 48 institutions, tracks the gap between projected greenhouse gas emissions and the levels required to meet the Paris Agreement's temperature goals. Its conclusions are grounded in the most recent inventory of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) submitted by Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) as of 30 September 2025.
Temperature Projections: A Slight but Misleading Improvement
The 2025 report shows a marginal improvement over the previous year's projections. Based on the full implementation of all NDCs available as of the September 2025 deadline, global warming over this century is projected to reach 2.3–2.5°C, compared to 2.6–2.8°C in the 2024 report. Projections based on current policies alone — without assuming additional ambition from unimplemented pledges — point toward 2.8°C of warming, down from 3.1°C in the 2024 assessment.
The report is explicit about what these numbers mean: the gap between where the world is heading and where it needs to go remains vast. To align with a 2°C pathway, annual greenhouse gas emissions must be cut by 35% by 2035. To align with a 1.5°C pathway, the required cut is 55% by 2035 — a level of reduction that would require an unprecedented transformation of the global energy system within a single decade.
The NDC Submission Gap
One of the report's most striking findings is the slow pace of NDC submissions. The Paris Agreement operates on a five-year cycle, with Parties expected to submit updated, more ambitious NDCs by 2025. As of the 30 September 2025 deadline, less than one-third of the 195 Parties to the Paris Agreement had submitted their new NDCs.
| Indicator | 2024 Report | 2025 Report |
|---|---|---|
| Warming under full NDC implementation | 2.6–2.8°C | 2.3–2.5°C |
| Warming under current policies | 3.1°C | 2.8°C |
| Required emissions cut by 2035 (2°C) | — | 35% |
| Required emissions cut by 2035 (1.5°C) | — | 55% |
| NDCs submitted by September deadline | — | <33% of Parties |
The low submission rate is not merely a procedural concern. NDCs are the primary mechanism through which the Paris Agreement translates collective temperature goals into national action. Without updated pledges, the architecture of the Agreement loses its capacity to ratchet ambition over time. The report notes that several major emitters had either missed the deadline or submitted pledges that were not more ambitious than their previous commitments.
The 1.5°C Threshold: Overshoot Now Very Likely
The report addresses the 1.5°C target with unusual directness. It states that a multi-decadal average temperature rise exceeding 1.5°C is now "very likely within the next decade." This is not a prediction of a single-year spike — which has already occurred, with 2024 exceeding 1.5°C annually — but of a sustained breach of the threshold as measured over decadal averages.
The distinction matters. The Paris Agreement's 1.5°C goal is defined as holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C and pursuing efforts to limit it to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, understood as a long-term average. A sustained breach means the target has been missed, not merely approached.
The report discusses the concept of "overshoot" — exceeding 1.5°C temporarily before potentially returning below it through large-scale carbon removal. It warns that any overshoot must be limited and temporary to preserve the possibility of returning to 1.5°C by 2100. However, it also notes that the technologies and deployment scales required for such reversal do not currently exist at the necessary magnitude.
Sectoral Analysis: Where Emissions Are and Are Not Falling
The report provides a sectoral breakdown of global emissions trends, identifying where progress is and is not occurring:
- Power sector: Renewable energy capacity additions reached record levels in 2024, with solar and wind continuing to be the cheapest source of new electricity in most markets. However, fossil fuel use also increased, meaning total power sector emissions have not yet peaked.
- Transport: Electric vehicle adoption continues to accelerate, particularly in China and Europe, but global transport emissions remain flat as vehicle fleets grow and SUV sales outpace EVs in several markets.
- Industry: Industrial emissions remain the hardest to abate, with steel and cement production continuing to rely heavily on fossil fuels. Green hydrogen and electrification remain at early deployment stages.
- Land use: Deforestation emissions remain significant, particularly in tropical regions. The report notes that nature-based solutions could contribute up to 30% of the needed emissions reductions but are chronically underfunded.
The United States Factor
The report explicitly addresses the impact of the United States' withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, which was initiated in January 2025 and is scheduled to take effect one year later. The U.S. is the world's second-largest emitter and the largest historical emitter. Its exit from the Agreement removes a significant source of climate finance and technical cooperation, and signals a retreat from the federal-level emissions reduction commitments made under previous administrations.
UNEP estimates that the U.S. withdrawal effectively adds approximately 0.1°C to the projected warming trajectory — a figure that, combined with the methodological adjustments noted above, largely explains the apparent but misleading improvement in the headline temperature numbers.
Implications for COP30 and Beyond
The report was released six days before the opening of COP30 in Belém, Brazil, on 10 November 2025. Its findings framed the negotiations by establishing the scientific baseline against which any political outcomes would be measured. The key question for COP30 was whether the summit would produce mechanisms to close the emissions gap — through stronger NDCs, expanded climate finance, or new sectoral commitments — or whether it would result in another round of declarations without binding implementation.
The report's authors were clear about what is needed: not new processes or frameworks, but the execution of existing commitments at a dramatically accelerated pace. The 35% emissions cut required by 2035 for a 2°C pathway equates to reducing global emissions by approximately 19 gigatonnes of CO₂-equivalent — more than the current annual emissions of China.
Sources
- UNEP, Emissions Gap Report 2025: Off Target, 4 November 2025
- IISD SDG Knowledge Hub, "New NDCs Narrow Emissions Gap, But Gap Remains Large, UNEP Report Finds," November 2025
- PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, summary of UNEP Emissions Gap Report 2025
- NewClimate Institute, analysis of Emissions Gap Report 2025
- UNEP, speech by Executive Director on emissions gap, November 2025
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Institutional Research Desk · Foresight Institute of Research and Translation
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