There is a “massive gap between rhetoric and reality” that must be closed by new climate pledges being drafted under the Paris Agreement, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) says.
In the 15th edition of its annual “emissions gap” report, the UNEP calls for “no more hot air” as countries approach the February 2025 deadline to submit their next nationally determined contributions (NDCs) setting mitigation targets for 2035.
These NDCs “must deliver a quantum leap in ambition in tandem with accelerated mitigation action in this decade”, the report says.
The report charts the “gap” between where emissions are headed under current policies and commitments over the coming decade, compared to what is needed to meet the Paris goal of limiting global warming to “well below” 2C and pursuing efforts to stay under 1.5C.
It highlights that greenhouse gas emissions reached record levels in 2023, up 1.3% from 2022, and rising notably faster than the average over the past decade.
The report warns that both progress and ambition have “plateaued” in recent years, with relatively little of substance occurring since the pledges made at COP26 in 2021. And many countries are not even on track to meet their existing NDCs, with current policy projections from G20 nations exceeding NDC commitments by a collective 1bn tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions (in carbon dioxide equivalent, CO2e) in 2030.
Current policies put the world on track for 2.9C of warming by 2100, the report finds – though this could be reduced to 2.4-2.6C, if all existing NDCs are met.
But unless global emissions in 2030 are brought below the levels implied by current NDCs, a pathway to 1.5C with no or limited overshoot becomes “impossible”, the report says, and “strongly” increases the challenge of limiting warming to 2C.
While the magnitude of the challenge is “indisputable”, there are “abundant opportunities for accelerating mitigation”, the report says. It finds that global emissions could be cut by 54% by 2030 and 72% by 2035 at a cost of less than $200 per tonne of CO2.
This indicates that the gap between commitments and current policies is a result of a lack of policy support rather than more fundamental barriers to decarbonisation.
(For previous reports, see Carbon Brief’s detailed coverage in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023.)
Global greenhouse gas emissions at record levels
The UNEP report finds that human emissions of greenhouse gases – CO2, methane, nitrous oxide and fluorinated gases (F-gases) – reached a record 57.1bn tonnes of CO2 equivalent (GtCO2e) in 2023.
The chart below shows how fossil CO2 (black) is by far the largest contributor to annual emissions and the main driver of the increase in recent decades, with methane (grey) playing the second largest role.
Global emissions grew 1.3% (0.7 GtCO2e) in 2023, compared with 2022 levels – a rate notably faster than that over the prior decade (2010-19, at 0.8 GtCO2e per year).
(As the report notes, these numbers do not include many of the climate-related impacts on greenhouse gas emissions that are not a result of direct human interventions – such as the catastrophic Canadian wildfires in 2023. The ability of the biosphere to absorb a portion of human emissions is broadly expected to weaken under scenarios where the world does not rapidly reduce emissions.)
These emissions were driven by energy use, industrial process emissions and land-use change across a variety of sectors.
As the chart below shows, electricity generation was the largest driver of greenhouse gas emissions globally in 2023, responsible for approximately 26% of the total. Other major contributors were transportation (15%), industry (11%), fossil-fuel production (10%) and industrial processes (9%).
The report finds that global aviation had the largest relative increase in emissions, increasing 19.5% between 2022 and 2023 as the sector recovered from Covid-era lows. Fossil-fuel production emissions, road transportation and industrial process emissions also increased notably from 2022.
The authors note that the fossil share of generation is starting to decrease in the power sector as solar and wind expand rapidly, with capacity additions increasing by 50% in 2023. Global investment in renewable power, grids and storage is now considerably higher than global investment in oil, gas and coal.
Despite rapid growth in clean energy, power-sector emissions have yet to peak, with new clean additions globally not quite keeping up with the rate of demand growth. However, the report notes that both power-sector emissions and overall global greenhouse emissions are expected to peak in the next few years, even if they did not in 2023.
An even wider emissions gap
The primary focus of this edition of the report is tracking the gap between where the world is heading today – both under current policies and near-term commitments – and what would be needed to meet Paris Agreement goals of limit warming to well-below 2C.
However, since the 2023 report, there have not been any notable changes in country pledges or policies – and global emissions continued to grow.
This means that the emissions gap is wider than it was last year and the world is further off track from its climate goals.
The report explores a number of different future emissions scenarios including: those under policies in place today; emissions if Paris Agreement NDCs are met; emissions if both NDCs and national-level net-zero pledges are met; and emissions required under scenarios that limit warming to below 2C and to 1.5C with no or limited overshoot by 2100.
While these NDCs – alongside other policies enacted by countries – have helped move the world away from some of the darkest climate futures that seemed plausible a decade ago, the gap continues to grow between where the world is today and a path to meeting the Paris Agreement.
The report finds an emissions gap in 2030 of around 14GtCO2e between where the world is headed if countries achieve their “unconditional” NDCs (that is, those not conditioned on “climate finance” or other external assistance) – shown by the mid-blue line – and an emissions pathway that limits warming to below 2C (defined in the report as a >66% chance of avoiding 2C warming) – shown by as the pale red line.
The gap is even larger – around 22GtCO2e – between unconditional NDCs and a scenario consistent with limiting warming to 1.5C by the end of the century (red line). If conditional NDCs are fully implemented in addition to unconditional ones (light blue line), this emissions gap would shrink by around 3GtCO2e in 2030 for both the 2C and 1.5C scenarios.
If NDCs are not strengthened by 2035, this gap would grow to 18GtCO2e for keeping warming below 2C and 29GtCO2e for 1.5C, the report finds. In the absence of a ratcheting up of commitments in recent years, limiting warming to 1.5C with no or low overshoot is now much more difficult to achieve. Further delays could similarly imperil the 2C target.
In addition, many countries are “not even on track to deliver on their current NDCs” today, the report says. Major countries, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, the UK and the US, are all off track to meet their targets under existing policies. (Several of those that are on track had set weak targets, it adds.)
Countries are expected to update their NDCs by February 2025 and these should include mitigation targets up to the end of 2035 (compared to the 2030 date for the initial round of Paris NDCs).
However, the ability of post-2030 commitments to put the world on track to limit warming to below 2C is highly dependent on action pre-2030. As the report shows, strong climate action starting in 2024 would require a 4% reduction per year on average, while doing so in 2030 would increase this to 8% per year.
An upward revision of current policy warming
The UNEP report author team has been one of the main groups assessing the range of warming impacts the world could expect under current policies. However, their estimate has continued to increase over the past three reports – from 2.6C in 2022 to 2.7C in 2023 and 2.9C in 2024. This reflects both continued increases in global greenhouse gas emissions and methodology updates by UNEP.
The figure below compares these estimates between the 2022 (dark blue) 2023 (mid blue blue) and 2024 (light blue) versions of the UNEP report. Compared to the 2023 report, current policy warming outcomes increased notably, unconditional NDC outcomes were unchanged, conditional NDC warming increased slightly, and net-zero pledge warming decreased slightly.
The report finds that a continuation of current policies would result in a 100% chance of exceeding 1.5C, a 97% chance of exceeding 2C and a 37% chance of exceeding 3C by 2100. (And the world will continue to warm after 2100 as long as CO2 emissions remain above (net) zero.)
Under NDCs, the odds of exceeding 1.5C remains at 100%, while there is a 94% chance of exceeding 2C by 2100 under unconditional NDCs and a 79% chance under conditional NDCs.
If all country net-zero pledges are implemented (which, the report notes, few, if any, countries are on track to achieve today), these likelihoods are reduced to a 77% chance of exceeding 1.5C, a 20% chance of exceeding 2C and a near-zero chance of exceeding 3C.
The figure below compares the latest UNEP estimates (mid blue bars) to others in the literature – the emissions scenarios featured in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) sixth assessment report (dark blue), estimates published by Climate Action Tracker (light blue), and the IEA’s 2024 World Energy Outlook (grey).
Current policy outcomes are broadly in-line with the IPCC’s middle-of-the-road SSP2-4.5 scenario, though a notable gap has developed in recent years between UNEP and IEA estimates. While the three were nearly identical in 2021, the UNEP’s current policy warming estimate has increased while the IEA’s has decreased.
The UNEP provides a high-end warming estimate for its scenarios that is notably higher than that of other groups. This is because its approach includes both future emissions uncertainties associated with each scenario, plus the range of possible climate system responses from climate sensitivity and carbon cycle feedbacks. While the latter can be expressed probabilistically, the likelihood of future emissions outcomes under these scenarios are more difficult to assess.
High potential for deep emissions cuts
While countries are far from being n track to meet Paris Agreement goals today, the new report explores what it would entail – and cost – to close the emissions gap.
They find that, across all sectors of the economy, global emissions could be reduced by 31GtCO2e by 2030 (54% below current policy levels) for a cost of less than $200 per tonne of CO2. In 2035 this increases to 41GtCO2e (a 72% reduction from current policy levels), reflecting expected continued cost declines of mitigation technologies.
The figure below, taken from the report, shows the assessed mitigation potential for $200 per tonne of CO2 or below for each different sector of the economy.
The energy sector has the largest potential for low-cost decarbonisation at 12GtCO2e/yr in 2030 and 15GtCO2e/yr in 2035, largely driven by the replacement of fossil fuel electricity production with clean energy sources.
Agriculture, forestry and other land uses (AFOLU sector) have the second largest potential for decarbonisation, with forestry making up the largest component of this.
While substantial increases in investments and finance are required to accelerate mitigation across all of these sectors, the report shows that deep decarbonisation is achievable in the next decade at a reasonable cost.
Ultimately, the report highlights that the growing emissions gap reflects a lack of political will by countries to address emissions, rather than any fundamental constraint on the world’s ability to rapidly mitigate.
The post UNEP: New climate pledges need ‘quantum leap’ in ambition to deliver Paris goals appeared first on Carbon Brief.
UNEP: New climate pledges need ‘quantum leap’ in ambition to deliver Paris goals
SYDNEY, Wednesday 26 August 2026 — New 2026 Sustainability Reports released by supermarket giants Coles and Woolworths this week demonstrate the retailers are failing on their commitments to end deforestation in their supply chains.
Adele Chasson, Nature Policy Lead at Greenpeace Australia Pacific said:
“These so-called sustainability reports are revealing. Despite their public commitments in 2024 and 2025, neither Coles nor Woolworths have taken deforestation-linked beef off their shelves. Meanwhile, bulldozers continue to tear up forests and bushland, pushing wildlife closer to extinction and causing mass toxic runoff to flow into the Great Barrier Reef. Millions of native animals like koalas are losing their homes to beef pastures each year, while the big supermarkets put off action.
“Australians would be shocked to know that beef on the shelves of our biggest supermarkets could be pushing threatened species to the brink of extinction. Collectively Coles and Woolworths have made more than $2 billion in profits in the last year, profiting from the destruction of wildlife and precious Australian nature. Coles and Woolworths owe it to shoppers to deliver on their promises and end deforestation in their supply chains now.
“As big beef buyers, Coles and Woolworths have an essential role to play in keeping Australia’s unique forests standing. They can help stop the Great Barrier Reef from being poisoned by runoff and protect iconic forest wildlife by taking deforestation off their shelves. It’s time these big companies put their money where their mouths are and follow through on their promise of sourcing and supplying deforestation-free beef.”
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
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