The UN Environment Programme published its Emissions Gap Report 2025, titled Off Target, on 4 November, days before COP30 opens in Belém. The annual report assesses whether national pledges and policies put the world on course to meet the Paris Agreement's temperature goals.
UNEP finds that full implementation of nationally determined contributions would lead to warming of 2.3°C to 2.5°C over this century, down from 2.6°C to 2.8°C in last year's report. Implementing only current policies would lead to up to 2.8°C, compared with 3.1°C last year.
UNEP says the apparent improvement overstates real progress. Methodological updates account for 0.1°C of the change, and the upcoming US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement will cancel another 0.1°C. In UNEP's words, the new NDCs themselves have barely moved the needle.
Emissions are still rising
Global greenhouse gas emissions grew 2.3% in 2024 to 57.7 gigatonnes of CO2 equivalent, according to the report. G20 members, excluding the African Union, account for 77% of global emissions, and their emissions rose by 0.7% in 2024.
For 2°C pathways, UNEP says emissions in 2030 would have to fall 25% from 2019 levels, and for 1.5°C pathways, 40%. Full implementation of all NDCs would reduce expected global emissions in 2035 by about 15% from 2019 levels, before accounting for the US withdrawal. That compares with the 35% and 55% reductions in 2035 that UNEP says are needed for 2°C and 1.5°C pathways respectively.
Coverage of the pledges
UNEP found that only 60 parties, covering 63% of global greenhouse gas emissions, had submitted or announced new NDCs with mitigation targets for 2035 by 30 September 2025. Seven G20 members had submitted new NDCs with 2035 targets and three had announced them. UNEP says G20 members are collectively not on track to meet even their 2030 NDC targets.
The difference between UNEP's coverage figure and the UNFCCC's synthesis report, which covered about 30% of 2019 emissions, reflects that UNEP includes targets that have been announced but not yet formally submitted, such as China's.
Overshoot of 1.5°C
The report concludes that the multi-decadal average of global temperature rise will exceed 1.5°C, at least temporarily, very likely within the next decade. UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in his message on the report that scientists say a temporary overshoot above 1.5°C is now inevitable, starting at the latest in the early 2030s.
UNEP models a scenario of rapid mitigation from 2025 designed to limit overshoot to about 0.3°C, with a 66% chance, and return to 1.5°C by 2100. In that scenario, emissions would need to fall by 26% by 2030 and 46% by 2035 from 2019 levels.
The report also quantifies the cost of overshoot in terms of carbon removal: reversing each 0.1°C of overshoot would require permanently removing and storing about five years of current global annual CO2 emissions.
The energy dimension
The report points to the rapid growth of wind and solar, and the falling costs of deployment, as evidence that the technologies to deliver deep cuts are available. It also highlights methane abatement as one of the fastest ways to reduce near-term warming.
For energy markets, the report's projections describe a world in which fossil fuel demand continues for decades but under growing policy pressure. The gap between current policies, at 2.8°C, and full NDC implementation, at 2.3°C to 2.5°C, represents the policy space in which most energy market scenarios operate. Forecasters typically model a current policies case, a stated pledges case, and one or more cases consistent with Paris goals.
The report's emphasis on implementation gaps, with countries not on track to meet their 2030 targets, is relevant to forecasts of coal, oil and gas demand over the rest of the decade. If implementation lags, fossil fuel demand would be higher than pledges imply. If clean energy deployment continues to accelerate, as it has in China and other markets, outcomes could beat current policies.
How the projections have changed since Paris
UNEP notes that when the Paris Agreement was adopted ten years ago, temperature projections stood at 3°C to 3.5°C. The decline to 2.3°C to 2.8°C reflects the spread of national targets, the fall in the cost of clean technologies and policies adopted since 2015. Wind and solar deployment, electric vehicle sales and battery manufacturing have all grown faster than most forecasts made a decade ago.
That history is relevant to how energy market participants read the report. Long-range projections of warming and of fossil fuel demand have both shifted repeatedly as technology costs and policies changed. A current policies projection is a description of where existing policies lead if nothing else changes. It is not a forecast of what policymakers and markets will do over the next decade.
The finance gap
UNEP stresses that delivering faster emissions cuts would require a large increase in support to developing countries and changes to the international financial architecture. Many developing countries' NDCs include conditional targets that depend on finance. The cost of capital for clean energy projects in emerging markets is typically far higher than in advanced economies, which slows deployment even where resources are good. Multilateral development bank reform, guarantees and blended finance are among the tools under discussion.
Physical risk implications
For energy companies and infrastructure investors, UNEP's projections are also relevant to physical risk. Warming of 2.3°C to 2.8°C implies more frequent and intense heatwaves, droughts, floods and storms than today's climate, which already sees record temperatures. Power systems, fuel supply chains, ports and pipelines are designed using historical weather data, and planners are increasingly incorporating climate projections into design standards and stress tests.
What COP30 is expected to address
At COP30, negotiators will consider how to respond to the gap between pledges and Paris goals, alongside adaptation indicators, the finance roadmap toward $1.3 trillion a year, and the outcomes of the first global stocktake. The UNEP report adds to the case for a formal response to the NDC gap, though how parties will agree to address it remains uncertain.
What to watch
Outcomes from COP30, formal NDC submissions from the EU and India, and the International Energy Agency's World Energy Outlook later in November will provide further signals on how pledges translate into energy demand and investment.