Limiting global warming to 1.5C remains a cornerstone of the Paris Agreement, yet under current policies and alternative near-term trajectories, exceeding 1.5C is now widely assessed as unavoidable.

However, overshoot, UNEP argues, is not an argument for resignation, but rather for urgency to action. UNEP’s Limiting Overshoot Spotlight Report examines the implications of entering an era of 1.5C overshoot and the choices that remain available.

The report explores the risks and impacts associated with higher levels of warming, the mitigation pathways needed to limit peak warming and enable temperatures to decline, and how adaptation and development approaches must respond to changing conditions along an overshoot, peak and decline pathway.

Even as global temperature rises are now set to cross 1.5C, the report also notes that the world must continue to strive to return to below 1.5C as soon as possible. The report notes that the world can achieve this goal faster by acting now to get on an ‘overshoot, peak, and decline’ pathway.

---