Climate: the UN acknowledges 1.5°C will be overshot, Europe must hold its ground in Antalya

The facts

On 21 October, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) published its annual report on the gap between greenhouse gas emissions and climate targets, titled this year "The Point of Return". Its finding marks a break: according to UNEP, overshooting the 1.5°C threshold set by the Paris Agreement is now inevitable. In the best scenario studied, temperatures would peak at around 1.7 to 1.8°C by mid-century, before falling back below 1.5°C by 2100, with roughly a one-in-two chance of success.

Current national commitments fall far short. According to the report, full implementation of national contributions would cut global emissions by only 5 to 8% by 2030 and 11 to 15% by 2035, whereas they would need to fall by 18%, then 45%, then 69% in 2040 compared with 2025. As AFP reports, this puts the planet on a path to 2.6°C by the end of the century, and 2.8°C if only current policies are taken into account. The projection is bleaker than last year's, notably because of the United States' withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, the agency adds.

According to RFI, global emissions in 2025, at around 58.4 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent, remained stable, though UNEP cannot say that a peak has been reached. Fossil fuels still supply 80 to 86% of the world's primary energy.

The report also points to reasons for hope. According to the United Nations Regional Information Centre, UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen stresses that renewable capacity has grown three times faster than expected since 2015. AFP notes that the European Union is, according to preliminary data, among the few major emitters to have reduced their emissions in 2025, along with India and Russia, while emissions from the United States, China and Indonesia rose.

The positions at stake

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, whose term ends at the end of the year, rejects fatalism. RFI reports this remark:

"Overshooting does not mean giving up." — Antonio Guterres

For him, according to the United Nations Regional Information Centre, the emissions gap has become a leadership gap.

Non-governmental organisations are harsher. The Climate Action Network (CAN) criticises governments, particularly in the Global North, for continuing to approve new fossil fuel projects, and calls for national roadmaps for a fair transition away from them. Mohamed Adow, of the NGO Power Shift Africa, speaks, according to AFP, of a "historic failure of political leadership".

Other voices urge caution, and their arguments deserve a hearing. One argument often comes up in the European debate: the cost of the transition for households and industry, at a time of expensive energy. The compromise adopted by the European Union in March bears the mark of these trade-offs: according to the Council of the EU, the target of cutting net emissions by 90% by 2040 comes with a postponement to 2028 of the carbon market for heating and fuels, and the option of counting up to 5% of international credits from 2036. A transition perceived as unfair feeds social anger and, with it, the extremes.

The analysis

This report sends three messages to France and to Europe.

The first concerns implementation. COP31 will open on 9 November in Antalya, Turkey, co-chaired by Turkey and Australia, RFI recalls. On 12 October, the environment ministers of the Twenty-Seven adopted a position focused on low-carbon electrification, and France is pushing for a binding decision and commitments on methane, according to AFP. This line is consistent with the report, which calls in particular for tripling renewable capacity by 2035. But the same dispatch states that the ministers announced no new climate finance. Without resources, Europe will struggle to convince the countries of the South.

The second relates to sovereignty. Every cubic metre of gas and every barrel of oil that Europe stops importing reduces its dependence on suppliers who do not always have its interests at heart. The transition is also a policy of independence. The American withdrawal also leaves a diplomatic vacuum. Europe, which has written its 2040 target into law, is one of the few actors capable of defending climate multilateralism, which French diplomacy carried all the way to the Paris Agreement in 2015.

The third is social. RFI notes that the report does not mention energy sufficiency. Yet that is where acceptance of the effort will be decided. If the transition rests on low-income households, dependent on their cars and living in poorly insulated homes, it will be rejected. If it relies on public transport services, on renovation support and on a fair contribution from the largest emitters, it can become a shared project. Social justice is not a brake on climate ambition: it is its precondition.

Conclusion

The UN is not saying the battle is lost, but that the time for promises must give way to action. France could bring a simple proposal to Antalya: link electrification to a strengthened European social fund and to a quantified financial commitment to the most exposed countries. One question remains: will Europe, worried about its competitiveness and its budgets, agree to put money behind its ambition?

Article written with the help of artificial intelligence.