Climate crisis | Climate catastrophe: heading for three degrees of warming

The frequency, intensity and duration of extreme weather events such as Tropical Storm Rachel on October 11th in Long Beach, California are increasing massively due to global warming. Photo: AFP/David Swanson Theoretically, the goal of the global community to limit the heating of our planet to 1.5 degrees Celsius above the average temperature of the pre-industrial era still applies. If it were achieved, experts believe the worst consequences of climate change could be averted. However, according to a new report from the UN environmental program UNEP, if current global climate policies continue, the earth is heading for 2.8 degrees of warming by the end of the century.

This means that the forecast has worsened by another 0.2 degrees compared to the previous report from 2025. Every fraction of a degree above the 1.5 degree mark increases the risk of deadly floods, heat waves and forest fires, such as those experienced in many countries this year, said UNEP director Inger Andersen.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on Wednesday that current national climate protection measures were completely inadequate and that global greenhouse gas emissions were at a "record level." Every year, UNEP determines the gap between the expected emissions and the values ​​that would be necessary to achieve the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement, which came into force ten years ago.

According to the current report, the global average temperature will increase by 2.6 degrees by 2100 even if all countries fully meet their latest climate protection commitments. Given the current climate policy course of the states, especially the USA, the aforementioned 2.8 degrees can be expected. Last year, the UNEP assumed global warming to be between 2.3 and 2.5 degrees. Now the organization says that even in the most optimistic calculated scenario, in which all countries meet their desired climate neutrality goals, the earth would warm by 2.1 degrees by 2100.

»Those who are least responsible suffer the most.«

Guterres complained that humanity had broken its word. "The world can no longer avoid exceeding the 1.5 limit and the consequences are already devastating," said the UN Secretary-General, adding: "Deadly floods, brutal heat waves, raging wildfires, deaths, paralyzed economies, deepening inequalities and those least responsible are suffering the most."

Emissions from the use of crude oil, natural gas and coal, the biggest drivers of the climate crisis, continued to rise slightly in 2025 compared to the previous year. Since the beginning of industrialization, which was dated to 1850 when calculating global warming, the planet's average temperature has risen by around 1.4 degrees to date. According to climate experts, every tenth of a degree beyond 1.5 degrees increases the risk of irreversible consequences such as the death of coral reefs and the melting of glaciers and permafrost.

Guterres appealed to the leading industrialized and emerging countries (G20) to lead the fight against global warming. They are responsible for three quarters of greenhouse gas emissions. According to the report, the outlook has worsened, particularly due to the US withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement.

Given increased electricity demand and increased reliance on coal-fired power plants, the report said the United States emitted 133 megatons more CO2 equivalent last year than the previous year - an increase that "far exceeds" the increases of any other country. The USA is the second largest emitter of greenhouse gases after China. Apart from the USA, Indonesia and China in particular emitted more greenhouse gases in 2025 than in the previous year. There was a decline in India, Russia and the EU.

According to the Unep report, there is a 50 percent chance that the global temperature increase can be reduced to 1.5 degrees by 2100. To do this, it would have to reach its peak of 1.8 degrees by 2050. In order to further reduce global temperatures, humanity would then have to remove large amounts of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere - either through reforestation or technological methods such as CO2 capture.

According to Unep, for the scenario back to the 1.5 degree limit by the end of the century, global emissions would have to be reduced by 18 percent by 2030, by 45 percent by 2035 and by 69 percent by 2040 - compared to the level of 2025. But even if countries implement all of their planned climate protection measures, according to the report, emissions would only be reduced by a maximum of eight percent by 2030 and by Decrease by up to 15 percent in 2035.

Whether and in what form the global community continues to adhere to the 1.5 degree target will probably also be a central topic at the World Climate Conference in Antalya, Turkey. It starts on November 9th.

»We have to pull out all the stops to keep the maximum warming as low as possible and get it back to 1.5 degrees by the end of the century. That’s possible.”

UN Secretary General Guterres is convinced: “A transgression does not mean surrender. We can still keep them as low and as short as possible – and get temperatures back below 1.5 degrees by the end of the century.«

UNEP director Andersen demanded: “We have to pull out all the stops to keep the maximum warming as low as possible and get it back to 1.5 degrees by the end of the century. That is possible.” There are now a number of success stories about how emissions can be reduced quickly. The report points out that since the Paris Agreement, renewable energy has increased about three times as quickly as was expected at the time.

It is not only in Antalya that key decisions for the global climate are expected. In the runoff election in Brazil, left-wing President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva faces right-wing challenger Flávio Bolsonaro. Under the presidency of his father Jair Bolsonaro, the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest, which is very important for the global climate, was massively accelerated.

"Short-term profits for fossil fuel industries that have missed their transformation are apparently more important to the federal government than our future."

Smaller decisions also play a role for the climate, for example the agreement between Germany and France last week on a common position that includes a move away from the so-called phase-out of combustion engines in the EU. After that, cars with combustion engines can still be registered after 2035. France had so far stuck to the current rules. A majority could have prevented their weakening in the EU Parliament and the European Council.

The incumbent federal government of the CDU, CSU and SPD has already scaled back many national climate protection measures. The climate policy spokesman for the Left Party in the Bundestag, Fabian Fahl, took the UNEP report as an opportunity to sharply criticize this. "Heat summer, drought, low water - and the government is building gas power plants, slowing down renewables and postponing the phase-out of combustion engines," he said on Wednesday. “Short-term profits for fossil fuel industries that have missed their transformation” are “apparently more important than our future” to the coalition in Berlin. The Ministry of Economics must at least urgently receive funding for photovoltaic systems “and immediately stop the end of the fixed feed-in tariff for renewables,” demands Fahl.

Meanwhile, another storm raged in Spain this Monday, with extreme amounts of rainfall falling in the region around Valencia, among other places. The devastation in the city in eastern Spain was not as bad as the catastrophe caused by torrential rain at the end of October 2024. However, climate scientists are convinced that both events are linked to the enormous increase in sea water temperatures in recent years. In 2024, up to 422 liters of rain per square meter fell in eight hours in eastern Spain - as much as in the previous 20 months combined. This triggered flash floods and mudslides. More than 60,000 homes were destroyed and 236 people died as a result of the floods.

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