KOROR, PALAU, Wednesday 2 September 2026 — The new global heating projection by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has laid bare the dire realities of inevitable climate disaster, loss and damage for the Pacific and Australia in a 1.8°C world, with Greenpeace warning ‘we are now in bloody dangerous territory’, and must do everything possible to return warming to 1.5°C.

The report, Limiting Overshoot – Navigating exceedance of 1.5°C and pathways towards return, released as world leaders meet at this year’s Pacific Islands Forum in Palau, highlights the urgency of the climate crisis, the greatest security threat facing the Pacific. It comes as fracked gas from the Beetaloo Basin, one of Australia’s biggest climate bombs, began flowing for the first time.

Australia is the biggest polluter of all Pacific Islands Forum member states, far exceeding all other forum members combined. Greenpeace is calling on Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to centre Pacific priorities at the Forum, and walk the talk on climate solutions as a genuine family member of the Pacific.

Speaking from Palau, Shiva Gounden, Head of Pacific at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said: “The latest UNEP report has printed in black and white that fossil fuel-hungry nations have overstepped, overshot and overindulged at the expense of Pacific lives, livelihoods, cultures and communities. This year’s Pacific Islands Forum has made it more apparent than ever that climate change is the region’s greatest security threat, and we cannot waste time on geopolitical power games when our world is sinking beneath our feet.

“As a person from the Pacific, I know our communities will not quietly accept these dire warnings of climate overshoot as our fate; we are already living and fiercely resisting this reality every single day. With every increment of warming, our lands, our livelihoods, and our island homes are threatened, but the Pacific’s resolve only grows stronger. We draw strength from our ocean and those who walked before us; our people are the protectors of the frontlines of climate change and the beacons of climate justice.

“By harnessing the natural power of our sun, winds, and seas through a rapid transition to renewable energy, and uniting in true global collaboration, we can steer back to 1.5°C – this is our moral, legal, and scientific imperative. A Fossil Fuel Free Pacific can breathe life back into the lungs of our islands.”

Also in Palau, Dr Simon Bradshaw, COP31 Lead and climate expert at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said: “The UN report is warning that we are now in bloody dangerous territory. It lays bare the deadly consequences of reckless fossil fuel expansion, and a failure to listen to Pacific voices and to the decades of emphatic scientific warnings.

“It is a damning indictment of government climate inaction and negligence, coming just days after fracked gas from the Beetaloo Basin started flowing and Woodside’s disastrous Browse gas mega project undergoes Federal decision — two carbon bombs that would lock in decades of dangerous climate pollution and push us past the point of no return.

“Every new fossil fuel project pushes us closer to dangerous and irreversible tipping points in the climate system, with almost unimaginable consequences for the safety and security of communities in the Pacific, Australia and around the world.

“The task now is to minimise the magnitude, duration and consequences of any temperature overshoot. A pathway back to 1.5°C is possible but this pathway cannot be paved by fossil fuels.

“Accelerating the shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy, and working with our big energy partners across Asia to decarbonise together, is not only the path back from the climate brink, but also the key to our energy security and our future prosperity.”

Also in Palau, Vishal Prasad, Director of Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change, said: “This report is terrifying for the young people of the Pacific. We know what 1.5, and what anything beyond it, means for our future, our families, our culture and our environment. 1.5 to stay alive has never been just slogan. It is our reality.

“The International Court of Justice has made it clear: keeping to 1.5 is not a choice, it is a legal obligation. Every new fossil fuel project drives us further from it. So we are not asking for your goodwill. We are not begging you. We are telling you what international law requires of you: end fossil fuel expansion. No new coal, no new oil, no new gas. Your corporate profits cannot be allowed to extinguish our future.”

—ENDS—

Greenpeace Australia Pacific has delegates from the Pacific and Australia at the PIFLM in Palau available for interview

Headshots can be found here

Media contact: Kimberley Bernard in Palau on +61407 581 404 or kbernard@greenpeace.org

‘Bloody dangerous territory’: UN report an indictment of govt climate inaction

Governments must slash emissions further and faster, and keep every climate promise they have made for the planet to be able to return to 1.5C of warming by the end of the century after an inevitable overshoot, a group of prominent climate scientists has said.

In a flagship new report sketching out a way not to lose the most ambitious Paris Agreement goal, the scientists said that global temperatures need to peak at no higher than 1.8C above pre-industrial levels to give the world “a fighting chance” to reverse course. They added that plans to suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere can only play a limited role in this effort and cannot substitute for emissions cuts.

A return to the 1.5C warming limit will only be reached in an optimistic scenario that sees governments turn their full national climate plans – known as NDCs – into reality and meet their additional, more ambitious targets to reach net zero emissions, said the report published by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

Actual government policy is far off that track. Current measures to cut emissions that are funded and in force put the world on course for around 2.8C of warming by 2100, UNEP has previously found.

Joeri Rogelj, professor of climate science and policy at Imperial College London and one of the report’s authors, said it is necessary to keep the temperature peak as low as possible as there are limits to how fast the world can reverse global warming.

That is because the scale of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) interventions that can be implemented sustainably and in a just way will otherwise not be sufficient and some measures, such as tree-planting or forest management, will be less effective at higher temperatures, he added. 

Commenting on the report, UN Secretary-General António Guterres called for the 1.5C overshoot to be “as small and short as possible”. This, he added, “demands an overshoot of ambition”, involving accelerating the phaseout of fossil fuels and pursuing the renewables revolution, slashing methane pollution, and protecting land, forest and oceans.

“Governments must over-deliver on national climate plans, net-zero commitments, and beyond,” he urged in a video message. “The fight for 1.5 degrees is the fight for humanity.”

Overshoot, peak and decline

The report comes out nearly a year after the UN conceded for the first time that it is inevitable that global warming will exceed 1.5C temporarily and the world should focus on making that overshoot as small and short as possible.

UNEP’s Executive Director Inger Andersen told journalists that 1.5C remains the key goal, but “we now need a different approach from above”, while stepping up efforts to adapt to a warming world.

“A return to 1.5C is not assured,” she added. “But limiting the magnitude, duration and consequences of overshoot, while preserving the possibility of bringing temperatures back down, is the best remaining option to protect vulnerable people, reduce losses and secure a livable future for all.”

Battle over cleaning up shipping set to resume at London talks

Scientists warn in the report that warming above 1.5C should not be seen as safe or acceptable. Climate risks above that threshold intensify with every additional fraction of a degree of warming, they said. The report paints a grim picture of expected climate impacts: glaciers could lose more than a quarter of their remaining mass by 2100 and global food production could fall by as much as 14% by 2050 without effective adaptation.

Some small island developing states and low-lying coastal cities could be partially or completely submerged, while damaged ecosystems could further accelerate climate change.

“This report is a ‘fork in the road’ moment for the planet,” said Surangel Whipps, Jr., president of the Pacific island nation of Palau. “It is a further glimpse into a perilous future that has already arrived. To continue to have a fighting chance, calls for greater ambition are no longer enough – we need to see an urgent and unprecedented increase in political will and investment in a climate-safe future.”

Cut emissions first, remove carbon after

The authors call for a three-phase approach to bringing temperatures back down: an “immediate response” of deep and rapid emissions cuts and urgent protection for the most vulnerable as warming approaches and passes 1.5C; a “coping and containment” phase focused on reaching net-zero emissions and building resilience as temperatures peak; and a “long-term resilience” phase of net-negative emissions through carbon dioxide removal (CDR) and lasting adaptation as temperatures eventually decline.

Richard Betts, who leads climate impact research at the UK Met Office, said CDR is not a “get-out-of-jail-free card” and should only be additional to emission reductions that need to be achieved with “even more urgency than before”.

Critics of CDR have long pointed to the technology’s record of overpromising and underdelivering, and warn it has been exploited by the fossil fuel industry and some oil-producing states to try to delay the clean energy transition.

Not everyone was fully convinced by the UNEP overshoot report. Veteran climate scientist Bill Hare from Climate Analytics said it “does a good job of describing the hole we’ve dug ourselves into” but “a poor job of showing us that there is a way out”. He argued that its thin treatment of the need for a fossil fuel phase-out and ambitious mitigation pathways to cut emissions risk “turning it into a call to apathy rather than a call to arms”.

“Host of challenges” with CDR

Debra Roberts, honorary professor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa, told journalists that limiting global warming to around 1.8C is needed to give the world “a realistic and fighting chance” of returning to the 1.5C limit because of the “questionable” feasibility of interventions above that threshold.

CDR comes with “a whole host of challenges”, she added, including the impacts on food and water security of rolling out large-scale programmes and the unanswered questions of whether newer technologies will work at scale and who will foot the bill.

“It’s going to happen in a very, very complex decision-making space where the risks and impacts are dramatically becoming more complex and interrelated,” she said. “That’s why the pressure there is keep those emissions as low as possible because they give us the greatest fighting chance of the return to 1.5C in a more equitable and just way.”

The post UN sets out narrow path back to 1.5C warming after inevitable overshoot appeared first on Climate Home News.

UN sets out narrow path back to 1.5C warming after inevitable overshoot

This week our powerful Pacific team is in Palau for the Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting. This is a major moment in our campaigns for Pacific climate justice and to stop deep sea mining. So what’s it all about, what can we expect over the coming days, and why is this year’s meeting in particular so important? Read on to find out!

_{*Pawa is Melanesian word meaning collective power.}

Meet Moemoana Schwenke, our Pacific Climate Campaigner

“When you love something deeply, you do everything you can to protect it.”

What is the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF)?

The Pacific Islands Forum, or ‘PIF’, is our region’s most important political organisation. It is where countries of the Pacific — including Australia and New Zealand — come together to collaborate on shared challenges and to set collective goals.

The PIF Leaders Meeting is an annual weeklong event that includes a dedicated meeting of the Pacific’s small island developing states (PSIDS), many special side events organised by Pacific civil society, the leaders’ meeting itself, and more. At the end of the week, leaders issue a Forum Communiqué, capturing what they have agreed on, their shared priorities and the actions they will take together.

This year’s meeting is being held in the beautiful northern Pacific nation of Palau, the same place our Pacific team gathered back in January to plan for the year.

What’s at stake this year?

Climate change has dominated the PIF for decades. Pacific leaders have been crystal clear it is their number one priority, and the annual gathering is the moment they can exert maximum pressure on Australia over its fossil fuel record.

The voyage to COP31

This year’s meeting comes less than three months before COP31, where Australia will take on the role of President of Negotiations — a role it has committed to undertaking in partnership with the Pacific — and less than a month before the ‘Pacific Pre-COP’, to be held in Fiji and Tuvalu.

Following a fraught round of mid-year negotiations in Bonn, PIF leaders will need to set out a clear vision and priorities for COP31. These include accelerating a just global transition away from fossil fuels, defending science as the foundation of international climate cooperation, and increasing the availability and accessibility of finance for renewable energy and climate adaptation.

Accountability for Australian fossil fuel exports

Since the last PIF Leaders Meeting, Australia has signed the Belém Declaration on the Transition Away from Fossil Fuels. The declaration reaffirmed the legally binding commitment to help limit global warming to 1.5°C and recognised that this is incompatible with new fossil fuel production. Yet, Australia has continued to approve new coal and gas projects, including at least five since the last PIF Leaders Meeting.

What is Greenpeace doing?

We’re going big this year, taking six members of our team to Palau to support Pacific leaders to hold the line, hold Australia accountable, and show the world what’s at stake. We’ll lobby leaders, hold press conferences, share our messages with the world, and support our incredible local partners in Palau.

How can you get involved?

PIF is the first in a drumbeat of major moments where we’ll be carrying the voices of the Pacific to the world. Come October we’ll be voyaging to Fiji on our ship Oceania for the Pacific Pre-COP, and in November we’ll be off to Antalya for the world’s climate negotiations (COP31).

Learn more about the Pacific way to a fossil fuel free future by checking out our report and exhibition.

Follow our journey, and check back here for more ways to join the movement for climate justice. Together we have the pawa!

Pawa in Palau