The UN Environment Programme has confirmed that overshooting the 1.5C goal inscribed in the 2015 Paris agreement is now unavoidable and likely to occur in the next few years. Under even the most optimistic future, global heating will reach at least 1.8C. In a strategic retreat, the United Nations concedes that Earth has lost its chance to prevent some of the worst impacts of global warming.
Scientists warn that every fraction of temperature rise intensifies destructive extreme weather, glacier melt, ecosystem loss, and the submersion of island and coastal cities. Any overshoot of the 1.5C limit threatens more extreme weather and pushes the planet closer to tipping points, such as the collapse of ice sheets and the loss of coral reefs.
Officials state that the world must now figure out how to get temperatures below the danger zone and back to safety. Countries must try to minimize the period of overshoot and wrestle temperatures back down through deep, rapid emissions cuts and by removing carbon from the atmosphere.
A new goal has been proposed to limit the overshoot of rising temperatures and eventually undo the temperature gains. However, scientists describe this as a highly uncertain path.