Global warming will exceed limit, UN says in a report that maps path to get back below danger zone

The United Nations has announced that Earth is on track to exceed the 1.5 degree Celsius warming limit agreed upon in the 2015 Paris climate accord, according to a new report. The report, the first of its kind, warns that the world will soon cross the safe temperature threshold due to greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels.

Co-author Richard Betts, a climate scientist at the University of Exeter, stated that humanity is speeding past the limit to avoid climate catastrophe. However, the report suggests that policymakers should prepare for and navigate a future where global temperatures cross the 1.5-degree mark and then cool back down to that level.

This process, known as "overshoot," would involve decades of increased weather-related disasters, rising sea levels, extinctions, and melting ice and glaciers. The report acknowledges that while the 1.5-degree target remains the goal, a different approach is needed to limit excessive warming and reduce the time spent above that threshold.