According to a new UN Environment Programme (UNEP) report, global temperatures will pass the 1.5°C threshold within the next few years, making climate risks and impacts ever more severe. The good news? Science-based decision-making can still lead us along a pathway where we reverse temperature increases and achieve the global goals set out in the Paris Agreement. From CMCC’s Overshoot Platform to issues of equity and justice today’s choices can help reduce the vulnerability of societies, communities and economies to the unavoidable impacts of climate change.

At the very best and if all current climate commitments and policies are implemented, temperature increases are set to reach at least 1.8°C above pre-industrial levels, says the latest UNEP report, Limiting Overshoot. A significant failure that puts us on course to exceed the Paris Agreement goal of limiting warming to 1.5°C, with some pathways even suggesting that there is a high chance that we will surpass the 2°C mark in the coming decades.

However, there is still a glimmer of hope. The UNEP report not only looks at what’s at stake if solutions aren’t rapidly implemented, it also presents an “overshoot, peak, and decline” pathway, which is humanity’s best shot at minimizing time spent above 1.5°C and the impacts that this will generate.

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