World set to exceed 1.5C warming limit, UN report warns

Summary

A United Nations report says the world has lost the chance to prevent global warming from significantly exceeding the 1.5°C threshold above pre-industrial levels. The United Nations Environment Programme warned that warming is now set to breach the 1.5°C limit set under the 2015 Paris Agreement, after decades of insufficient climate action. Temperatures could still be brought down, but only with much larger emissions cuts and the removal of vast amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, using methods the UN describes as "costly and risky".

Timeline

1. RTÉ

   21 Oct 2026, 05:01 UTCSource ↗

   RTÉ reports that, according to a United Nations report, the world has lost the opportunity to prevent global warming significantly exceeding the 1.5°C threshold above pre-industrial levels.

2. RFI

   21 Oct 2026, 12:36 UTCSource ↗

   RFI reports that the United Nations Environment Programme has warned global warming is now set to breach the 1.5°C limit of the 2015 Paris Agreement, and that reversing it would require far larger emissions cuts and large-scale carbon dioxide removal, which the UN calls "costly and risky".