The United Nations Environment Programme issued a report acknowledging that Earth will soon exceed the 1.5-degree Celsius threshold set by the 2015 Paris climate accord. Instead of preventing that overshoot, the new strategy focuses on limiting peak warming and then cooling temperatures back below the threshold by ending fossil fuel use and developing carbon dioxide removal technologies. "Humanity is speeding past the limit to avoid climate catastrophe," said United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres. The world is currently at 1.4 C above pre-industrial levels.

Current policies could push temperatures to 2.6 C by 2100, while ambitious goals might peak at 1.8 C. The report calls this approach "overshoot," envisioning a hump-shaped path where temperatures peak then gradually cool, ideally by century's end. UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen emphasized the 1.5 target remains the goal but must be approached differently.

Scientists warn every five years of delay adds at least a tenth of a degree to peak warming. The period above 1.5 degrees will likely last many decades, bringing increased weather disasters, rising seas, and extinctions.