By Ashley Muspratt · Posted: Oct 02, 2026

The work to bring temperatures back starts now

The United Nations Environment Programme’s recent climate report, Limiting overshoot: Navigating exceedance of 1.5°C and pathways toward return, is the stuff of nightmares. At least mine, a person who spends most of my waking hours working to mitigate climate change.

As if getting to net-zero CO₂ emissions isn’t hard enough, UNEP’s report sets a new goal post: sustained net-negative CO₂ emissions throughout the second half of this century. Having waited too long to make meaningful progress stopping greenhouse gas emissions, merely stopping them is no longer enough for safeguarding life on this planet.

Scientists have long considered 1.5°C the threshold above which the most catastrophic and irreversible impacts of climate change ensue, and it remains the benchmark for international climate policy. With global emissions still at record highs, however, there is no longer a pathway for staying under this threshold. Exceeding 1.5°C is inevitable. This decade.