Published on: 2026-09-02
Source: United Nations – United Nations –
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September 2, 2026 Climate and Environment
Humanity is still capable of avoiding a climate catastrophe, but immediate action is required. This is the main thesis of the report published on Tuesday by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Record heat waves, destructive floods, and extreme weather are all, according to the authors of the report, signs of a rapidly warming planet, and the Earth’s climate will soon exceed safe temperature limits.
“The fight for 1.5 degrees is a fight for humanity,” emphasized UN Secretary-General António Guterres. “In the next few years, we are likely to exceed the 1.5 °C limit.”
The 2015 Paris Agreement committed world leaders to limit temperature rise, but as highlighted in the report, the international community is not fulfilling this promise.
“Extreme heat waves are already showing that climate impacts will come faster, strike harder, and last longer, taking lives and causing profound upheavals,” stated UNEP head Inger Andersen.
According to her, it is now necessary to double efforts: to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and to strengthen resilience and adaptation.
“Every fraction of a degree will cost lives, destroy livelihoods, increase inequality, and push ecosystems toward irreversible damage,” António Guterres remarked. “Humanity is rapidly approaching the point beyond which it will be impossible to avoid a climate catastrophe.”
Nevertheless, according to the UN head, swift and decisive action can still put the world back on a safe path: “The exceedance must be made as small and brief as possible – limiting how high the temperature rises and how long it stays above the threshold.”
© Unsplash/Ratio EV Charging A “leap of ambition” is needed: accelerated phase-out of fossil fuels, a revolution in renewable energy, a sharp reduction in methane emissions, as well as protection of lands, forests, and oceans.
This requires a “leap of ambitions”: an accelerated phase-out of fossil fuels, a revolution in renewable energy, a sharp reduction of methane emissions, as well as the protection of lands, forests, and oceans.
Governments must implement and exceed their national climate plans and net-zero commitments, and developed countries must triple adaptation financing and direct it to those who are at greatest risk.
Key findings of the report:
• At temperatures above 1.5°C, risks and negative consequences will intensify every year and with every fraction of a degree: humanity faces extreme weather, loss of ecosystems, flooding of small island states and low-lying cities, damage to health, food security, water supply, infrastructure, and the economy.
• The probability of reaching irreversible “tipping points” is increasing, including the destabilization of major ice sheets and the degradation of the Amazon.
• Mitigation and adaptation measures should go hand in hand.
• “Net zero emissions” is merely a stage on the way to negative emissions.
• Achieving success will require political will, more effective policy, inclusive governance, and financing.
• Countries bearing the greatest responsibility for climate change must act faster and with greater ambition.
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