Despite progress since the Paris Agreement, a peak in greenhouse gas emissions is only just within sight – and time is fast running out to stay below 1.5C of human-caused global warming since the preindustrial era.
As a result, almost all pathways that keep 1.5C within reach now involve a temporary “overshoot”.
This term refers to a period where the best estimate of warming exceeds 1.5C, until temperatures are brought back below the limit by removing carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere.
While this idea is growing in prominence, there have only been limited efforts to understand what it would mean to breach the 1.5C limit, even if this is only during a temporary period of overshoot.
In a new Nature paper, we present the findings of a three-year Horizon Europe-funded project, looking at what overshoot means for emissions, temperatures, climate impacts and adaptation.
Our results show that overshooting 1.5C comes with significant uncertainty in terms of warming outcomes, climate impacts and associated risks. For example, climate uncertainty means that what is referred to as a 1.5C “pathway” carries a notable risk of much greater levels of warming.
In order to hedge against the risk of higher-than-expected warming, the world would need to develop substantial capacity for “net-negative” CO2 emissions. This could be used to reverse a temporary overshoot and reduce long-term risks, if warming is no more extreme than expected.
Even so, overshoot would come with irreversible consequences for humans and ecosystems, our research finds, such as rising sea levels and ecosystem loss.
Overshoot overconfidence
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been key to shaping our understanding of overshoot scenarios. In its latest sixth assessment report (AR6), the IPCC considered a range of pathways that limit median warming in 2100 to below 1.5C.
The report categorised the pathways according to their probability of breaching 1.5C, but also offered information on the amount of any expected overshoot.
Specifically, the C1 “no or limited overshoot” pathways allow an overshoot of “up to about 0.1C”. The C2 pathways return warming to 1.5C “after a high overshoot” of between “0.1C-0.3C”.
These categorisations give the impression that overshoot can be neatly and confidently constrained – to within a few tenths of a degree – and that in choosing a particular pathway, the countries of the world would have full control over the planetary thermostat.
Crucially, however, the numbers refer only to median warming outcomes. Considering the uncertainties in Earth system feedbacks, it is not possible to rule out much higher peak warming. For example, this could be up to 2.5C under C2 scenarios (at the 95th percentile of all model runs).
If the increase in temperatures is indeed much higher than expected under median warming, or if warming continues even when CO2 emissions reach net-zero, then returning to below 1.5C after an overshoot would require much more CO2 removal than thought.
Even with stringent emissions reductions, we therefore cannot rule out the possibility that reversing a 1.5C overshoot would require the removal of hundreds of billions of tonnes CO2 by 2100.
Indeed, based on the simple climate model FaIR, our findings show that 400GtCO2 of additional removals could be needed to return temperatures to 1.5C by 2100, if warming reaches the 75th percentile of expected levels rather than the median (about 1.7C instead of 1.5C, an outcome with a likelihood of one-in-four).
(This is based on generating more than 2,000 physically plausible climate outcomes for an emission pathway that limits median warming to around 1.5C and achieves net-zero CO2 by around mid-century, without the need for net-negative emissions thereafter.)
To reach 400GtCO2 of removals by 2100 would mean taking nearly 10GtCO2 out of the atmosphere every year after global CO2 emissions reach net-zero. For comparison, current removals amount to around 2GtCO2 per year, from all sources.
The 400GtCO2 of removals that could be needed to deal with higher-than-expected warming is similar to the amount of removals that is typically being relied on in 1.5C pathways, assuming median levels of warming in response to a given level of emissions.
This is shown in the figure below, where the first row illustrates the range of cumulative CO2 removal needed to return temperatures to below 1.5C by 2100, depending on how sensitive the climate is to a given level of emissions. The bottom two rows show removals in C1 “no or limited overshoot” and C2 “high overshoot” 1.5C pathways, assuming a median warming response.
Our findings imply the world may therefore need a “preventive” capacity to remove hundreds of billions of tonnes of CO2 by 2100, to hedge against the risk of higher-than-expected warming.
Moreover, given the political, economic, sustainability and other constraints on the speed and scale at which CO2 removal can be scaled up, it therefore may not be possible to rely on removals to compensate for a failure to reduce emissions in other parts of the economy.
Irreversible impacts
If warming is no more severe than expected under median outcomes, then preventive CO2 removal capacity could be used to steadily reduce temperatures after overshoot.
This could be an important way to minimise long-term climate risks following overshoot.
For example, for every 100 years of overshoot above 1.5C, our findings show that there would be an additional 40cm of sea-level rise by 2300. There would be similarly irreversible consequences for the world’s frozen ecosystems, such as permafrost and peatlands.
In addition, overshoot increases the risk of crossing irreversible climate “tipping points”.
These findings show that even if a global temperature overshoot is reversed, the temporary breach of the 1.5C limit would still come with some irreversible consequences.
Peak and decline
Our study offers a framework for minimising the risks associated with higher-than-expected warming and potentially irreversible climate impacts after temperature overshoot.
Instead of the current categories of mitigation pathway, which focus on peak warming and end-of-century temperatures – apparently with a high level of precision – our paper suggests “peak and decline” (PD) scenarios that allow us to consider a wide range of plausible climate outcomes.
These scenarios aim to achieve a peak in warming, followed by sustained temperature reductions during a period of at least several decades. Global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions would need to decline towards net-zero CO2 to achieve temperature peaking, followed by net-negative CO2 emissions to enter a long-term decline.
The “peak” is determined by how fast emissions are reduced in the near term, towards reaching net-zero CO2 emissions. This determines the maximum cumulative CO2 emissions of a pathway and therefore the level and timing of peak warming. Importantly, the stringency of non-CO2 GHG emission reductions will also strongly affect peak warming.
The pace of global temperature “decline” after the peak – and therefore the ability to reverse a temporary exceedance of a target limit – depends on the level of net-negative CO2 emissions that can be achieved.
In PD “overshoot” pathways (PD-OS), warming exceeds 1.5C before returning to that level and staying there into the future. These are similar to PD pathways, but the carbon budget, timing of net-zero CO2 and amount of CO2 removal depends on the length, level and timing of overshoot.
In PD “enhanced protection” pathways (PD-EP), warming is kept as low as possible and gradually reversed over time, to minimise climate risks. They entail stringent, rapid cuts in GHG emissions, achieving net-zero CO2 as soon as possible and using sustainable levels of CO2 removal to reduce warming over time, potentially reaching net-zero or even net-negative GHGs.
These pathways are illustrated in the figure below, where the 1.5C limit is shown as a horizontal dotted line, and the different peak and decline pathways are contrasted with a scenario in which temperatures continue to increase, despite reaching net-zero CO2.
Our findings suggest that a peak and decline “enhanced protection” pathway would offer the best way to hedge against the uncertainties and minimise the risks around overshoot and the response of the climate system. This would entail two actions from countries worldwide.
First, it would mean reducing emissions as fast as possible to slow down temperature increase, reduce peak warming, and reduce the dependency of needing large amounts of CO2 removals to even achieve net-zero CO2 emissions.
Second, it would mean rapidly scaling up global capacity for CO2 removal to hedge against high-risk outcomes from stronger than expected climate feedback.
The scale of preventive removal capacity that we estimate could be needed, is only just achievable within sustainable limits. If some removal capacity is used to compensate for a failure to rapidly reduce emissions, then it would not be available to manage higher-than-expected warming.
Overall, our paper reinforces the idea that earlier emissions reductions are the best way to minimise far-reaching climate risks in the 21st century and beyond.
The post Guest post: How to minimise the risks from overshooting the 1.5C limit appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Guest post: How to minimise the risks from overshooting the 1.5C limit
New Zealand’s parliament has adopted a controversial new law blocking a whole avenue of climate litigation and shutting down its most advanced corporate lawsuit, which has been blamed by the government for shaking business confidence and investment.
The Climate Change Response (Tort Liability) Amendment Bill, expected to take effect in the coming days after it is formally signed by the Governor-General, prevents all current and future civil claims for climate loss or harm under tort law.
Justice minister Paul Goldsmith said last week that the aim was to give businesses “certainty around their climate change obligations”, noting it would not alter the government’s responsibilities under the Climate Change Response Act 2002 nor business obligations under the Emissions Trading Scheme.
“Our response to climate change is best managed by the Government at a national level and not through piece-meal litigation in the courts,” he added in a statement.
Such litigation, he said, “risks developing a new regime that contradicts the framework Parliament has already enacted” to tackle climate change.
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Experts say that despite dismissing the lawsuit, the ruling sets a precedent by confirming that climate science can establish legal liability for the damage caused by emissions
Goldsmith singled out a key domestic climate lawsuit brought by Northland iwi leader and activist Mike Smith against six big companies: dairy firms Fonterra and Dairy Holdings, energy firms Genesis Energy and Z Energy, New Zealand Steel and coal mining firm BT Mining. A seventh original defendant, Channel Infrastructure, was dropped after it permanently decommissioned its Marsden Point oil refinery.
Smith argued that these companies had caused him harm under public nuisance and negligence law, as well as a third breach of a duty to cease contributing to climate change that has yet to be tested domestically. He did not seek financial compensation, instead asking for the companies to immediately stop emitting or contributing to net greenhouse gas emissions.
In one of the most advanced corporate climate accountability lawsuits in the world, a trial had been scheduled for April 2027 after the Supreme Court unanimously allowed the case to continue.
Corporate lobbying in the shadows
Smith described the passing of the bill as “deeply concerning”, particularly as it coincided with the Supreme Court hearing another of his climate lawsuits. In that case, Smith v Attorney-General, he argues that the government’s response to climate change and its impacts on Māori communities in particular breaches rights to life and culture.
“That timing raises profound questions about the separation of powers and the rule of law,” said Smith. “Whatever one’s view of the merits of these cases, it is deeply troubling when parliament intervenes to remove a legal pathway while the courts are actively considering fundamental questions about climate responsibility, rights and the crown’s obligations.”
The bill – which says that no person (including the government) can be found liable in tort for emissions-related climate change effects – followed major lobbying efforts by the companies defending themselves in Smith’s lawsuit. They outlined a proposed legal amendment in a briefing note to the government in 2024.
The centre-right government has been fiercely criticised over its lack of transparency in relation to this lobbying activity. The national ombudsman recently found that the Prime Minister’s Office effectively withheld information requested by the Environmental Law Initiative about meetings, discussions and conversations regarding Smith’s case.
Green groups fail to stop bill
The bill sparked huge concern among environmental campaigners in New Zealand and elsewhere. Greenpeace Aotearoa called it a “shocking abuse of executive power” and the vast majority of submissions to a parliamentary inquiry said it should be rejected.
But in the end, it was adopted with little resistance, moving relatively smoothly through parliament, passing its third reading by 67 votes to 53. Sam Bookman, climate law lecturer at Melbourne Law School, told Climate Home News he was not surprised by this, given that the coalition government has a secure majority.
A complaint has been made to the UN special rapporteur on climate change and human rights by Smith, the National Iwi Chairs Forum Pou Tikanga and youth coalition Climate Clinic Aotearoa over what they see as the government’s heavy-handed approach. Smith is also challenging the new law in yet another lawsuit.
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Bookman thinks it “very unlikely” that such a challenge will succeed, noting that New Zealand’s constitution is firmly anchored in parliamentary sovereignty.
But the expert in climate law does not see the bill as the end of legal action in the country, noting that New Zealand has a “sophisticated climate litigation landscape with a growing number of specialist and experienced lawyers and NGOs”.
The country is also approaching its next general election in November, and some opposition parties have pledged to restore access to the courts if elected.
Amanda Larsson, global project lead on agriculture for Greenpeace International, said: “This law deserves to be tested, and I strongly encourage the international climate litigation community to unite and help defend New Zealanders’ fundamental right to hold polluters accountable before this becomes a global blueprint.”
Copycat legislation on the rise
New Zealand’s move is part of a small but growing legislative effort to shut down climate litigation around the world.
In the US, Republican politicians introduced legislation in the House and Senate in April that would shield fossil fuel firms from climate liability lawsuits. Similar laws have already been passed at state level in Tennessee, Utah, Iowa and Louisiana.
The German state of Bavaria has put forward a similar proposal to the Federal Council, aiming to block private climate claims as well as the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments imposing such liability. There are also proposals to limit available remedies and actions in the Netherlands and Belgium.
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Bookman said he expects more efforts to counter climate damages litigation and advised plaintiffs to think about how to respond, including drawing on broader support in opposing them.
“Even though it’s very hard for plaintiffs to win these types of cases, companies are very eager to avoid the expense, embarrassment and political accountability that come even with unsuccessful lawsuits,” he said.
The post New Zealand moves to protect business with law curtailing climate litigation appeared first on Climate Home News.
New Zealand moves to protect business with law curtailing climate litigation
Bhima Yudhistira Adhinegara is the Executive Director of the Center of Economic and Law Studies (CELIOS), an Indonesia-based economic think tank. Muhammad Zulfikar Rakhmat is the Director of the China-Indonesia desk at CELIOS.
Indonesia produces around 60% of the world’s nickel, a metal used to manufacture batteries for electric vehicles (EVs) – more than any other country in the world. But in 2026, the government sharply reduced how much of its nickel can be extracted from the ground.
Production quotas were reduced by around 40% this year compared to 2025. Weda Bay, the largest nickel mine on Earth, had its allowance cut by more than 70% and exhausted its full-year quota by the end of May, halting mining entirely; it cannot resume large-scale extraction until next year unless regulators grant an extension.
The policy has sparked a vivid debate in Indonesian policy circles: how can the country shift its strategy from a decade of mining vast quantities of cheap nickel to producing a high-value and low-carbon material that the rest of the world wants for EV batteries.
The cuts aren’t a silver bullet to clean up Indonesia’s nickel industry, whose smelters are powered by coal – the most polluting fossil fuels. But alongside stricter enforcement of environmental rules, it is one side of efforts to produce more sustainable nickel for a premium.
Restricting Indonesia’s nickel output
Production quotas were introduced to stop the collapse of nickel prices because of oversupply in the market. Prices had fallen more than 40% in 2023 alone and kept sliding as Indonesian supply kept growing, hitting a four-year low of around $13,900 a ton in late 2025.
Critics called the recent tightening of production quotas proof that Indonesia’s nickel strategy has failed, arguing that the industry shouldn’t need to throttle its own output to survive. But when assessed against what the policy was supposed to do – push up nickel prices – it has worked. Prices jumped to $20,000 a ton in May, the highest since 2024.
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Chinese industry groups representing companies that have invested billions to mine and refine the country’s nickel were furious, warning Indonesia’s president Prabowo Subianto that the cuts put $50 billion worth of investment at risk. But much of that Chinese capital is sunk into smelters and processing plants built specifically to run on Indonesian ore, and cannot simply be moved elsewhere. That gives Jakarta more room to hold its ground than the warning suggests.
Stronger environmental enforcement
Since the start of the year, Indonesia’s forestry task force has seized more than four million hectares of land from mines and plantations operating illegally in protected forests, collecting over two trillion rupiah ($113 million) in fines.
This included 148 hectares seized from Weda Bay for lacking a forestry permit. The share of nickel produced from illegal small-scale mining also fell from about a quarter in 2022 to roughly 10% by 2024.
The crackdown responds to serious environmental damages in the nickel industry. On Obi Island, a waste pond collapsed after heavy rain in June 2025, flooding three villages and killing a resident. Internal company tests found chromium-6 – a carcinogen – in the water, in quantities far above the legal limit. The footprint of another mine near Raja Ampat, which is home to some of the world’s richest coral reefs, grew 60-fold in just eight years.
The market is responding to early cleanup efforts. Low-carbon nickel now sells for a real premium, roughly $18,800 to $19,300 a ton compared with $17,900 to $18,300 otherwise, as carmakers seek to source cleaner materials to comply with the European Union’s new emissions rules for imports.
In turn, this is incentivising the industry to do more to green its operations. Vale Indonesia’s smelter in South Sulawesi now runs almost entirely on hydropower, for example.
None of this addresses coal use, however. Major Indonesian nickel producers still emitted an estimated 15 million metric tons of greenhouse gases in 2023. Indonesia may be cracking down on illegal mining and rewarding cleaner producers but it is still running its mines on the dirtiest fuel available.
Unequal benefits
For Indonesia to truly benefit from producing cleaner and high-value nickel, it needs to reap the economic benefits too. Although the industry has boosted the country’s economic growth, the reality on the ground tells a different story.
Konawe in Southeast Sulawesi is home to a major smelting complex. Growth in the district jumped from 6% to 22% between 2015 and 2023, driven almost entirely by the nickel industry, according to a study by the Lowy Institute study. At the same time, poverty levels increased slightly and unemployment remained unchanged.
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In Halmahera, another epicentre of the nickel industry, spending by the poorest fifth grew just 5% between 2019 and 2022, compared with 28% for the wealthiest fifth, according to a separate study.
Part of the reason for this inequality is the system for transferring mining royalties to district authorities where the mines are located. In theory, they are entitled to the largest share. But in practice, payments are delayed, companies routinely dispute what they owe and royalties are pooled and distributed across a larger area.
The Natural Resource Governance Institute has found that decentralisation handed local governments power to approve new mines faster than they could build their capacity to manage them. Higher output raises national income on paper, but local governments remain constrained by fiscal rules and infrastructure costs that scale with mining.
None of this makes the 2026 quota cuts a mistake. Indonesia has every right to defend its pricing power over a resource it controls. But limiting extraction isn’t going to fix underlying issues around environmental enforcement and revenue-sharing. That requires rules that are consistently enforced, royalties that reach communities living by the mines, and a plan to wean smelters off coal.
The post Indonesia’s nickel production cuts are not enough to create a sustainable industry appeared first on Climate Home News.
Indonesia’s nickel production cuts are not enough to create a sustainable industry
Climate Change
Risk of “catastrophic” oil spill reaching Kimberley coast found in Woodside’s Scott Reef gas drilling plans
SYDNEY, Monday 24 August 2026 – New analysis of Woodside modelling released by Greenpeace Australia Pacific and Environs Kimberley has revealed the oil and gas corporation’s plans to drill at Scott Reef could cause an oil spill up to 30 times bigger than the 2009 Montara disaster, impacting the Kimberley coastline and reaching as far as Indonesia.
The new analysis details the “catastrophic” oil spill risk put to environmental regulators for approval by Woodside in its Browse to North West Shelf Project (Browse) plans, the worst-case scenario being a blowout directly below Scott Reef, polluting whale migratory pathways and covering isolated turtle nesting ground with oil condensate.
An FOI application (F348) revealed the federal environment department (DCCEEW) asked offshore oil and gas regulator NOPSEMA to look into the oil spill risk in 2025. NOPSEMA’s response to the application refused access to its report, and one document shows DCCEEW sought further advice this year.
Greenpeace and Environs Kimberley are calling on the Federal Government to publicly release the NOPSEMA report given the risk of an uncontrolled release of oil condensate from directly below Scott Reef.
Hannah Schuch, Senior Campaigner at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said: “Woodside is aware that drilling at Scott Reef risks a massive oil spill that would have severe, far-reaching consequences. It appears environmental regulators are aware too.
“The state and federal governments need to take this risk from Woodside’s drilling plans seriously, as they could end up allowing the worst oil spill in Australian history.
“The pygmy blue whales that migrate up and down the WA coast with their newborns each year could be swimming and feeding in toxic, oil-slicked water. Woodside’s proposal to drill at Scott Reef is an environmental disaster waiting to happen, and the WA and federal governments have one surefire way to prevent catastrophe — reject Browse.”
Martin Prichard, Executive Director at Environs Kimberley, said: “A catastrophic oil spill by Woodside would be disastrous not just for marine life in the area but also for the Kimberley’s $500 million tourism industry.
“The state and federal governments will see five marine parks on the Kimberley coast included in the risk area of a catastrophic Woodside oil spill.
“The Montara oil spill was disastrous for West Timor with the toxic oil destroying seaweed farmers’ livelihoods. The Kimberley dodged a bullet with Montara, we were lucky the spill didn’t head our way. Myself and a crew flew over the Montara oil spill and followed it as far as we could. It was like a scene from a disaster movie.”
After the WA Environmental Protection Authority deemed Browse “unacceptable” due, in part, to oil spill risk, Woodside submitted a mitigation plan based on technology that has never been used “in anger”, a weakness stated in an independent expert review of the plan.
Professor Richard Steiner, independent oil spill expert, said: “A large offshore spill is impossible to effectively contain or recover. Historically, only 2-6% of total spill volume is recovered and the ecological injury from the release of toxic hydrocarbons in the sea can be severe, extensive, and long-term.
“Here in Alaska, government research concludes that several marine populations injured by the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, including whales, fish, and seabirds, are still not recovering today, 37 years later. We should expect similar long-term ecological impacts in Western Australia if there were to be a major oil spill. The only sure way to avoid the risk of a catastrophic marine oil spill is to not develop oil and gas projects in marine environments.”
-ENDS-
Media contact
Emma Sangalli on emma.sangalli@greenpeace.org or 0431 513 465
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