Stark findings from UNEP’s Overshoot report demand urgent, ambitious climate action – IUCN
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) calls for urgent, ambitious greenhouse gas emission cuts in reaction to the stark findings of the ‘Limiting Overshoot’ report published today. According to the new UNEP report, exceeding 1.5°C of warming is now unavoidable; the effects on people and nature will be disastrous and, in many cases, permanent. IUCN also calls for commensurate adaptation measures to help the world face the escalating impacts, which are hitting vulnerable communities and ecosystems hardest. At the same time, the report highlights that we still have the power to minimise these impacts: decisions taken this decade will crucially determine how much higher global temperatures will rise, and for how long.
Human-induced warming is presently close to 1.4°C above pre-industrial levels and observed global temperatures are rising at about 0.25°C per decade. Under current policies, global warming is projected to reach around 2.6°C by 2100. Even the most optimistic scenario – with the implementation of all current nationally determined contributions (NDCs) and long-term net zero targets – will see temperature rise peak at 1.8°C above pre-industrial levels. The report calls for following an ‘overshoot, peak and decline’ pathway as the best remaining option to bring temperature rise to or below 1.5°C by the end of the century, which remains the goal, while adapting to unavoidable impacts.
The report also makes it explicit that climate change-driven global biodiversity loss is accelerating. Between 2023 and 2025, more than 80 per cent of tropical coral reefs experienced bleaching, across at least 83 countries and territories. Of total global glacier loss since the 1970s, more than 40 per cent occurred in the last decade (2015–2024).
"This report is a wakeup call – the world has run out of time to delay," said IUCN President Razan Khalifa Al Mubarak. “Species lost to climate change and irreversibly damaged ecosystems will not return when temperatures come back down. Our responsibility is to reduce how far this goes and how long it lasts. We must do all we can to limit the damage that climate overshoot will cause to communities and ecosystems.”
Overshoot is also expected to severely compromise nature’s services to humanity. Nature currently provides us with powerful carbon sinks and reservoirs, but its capacity to absorb and store carbon and to shelter us against the adverse effects of climate change weakens as warming continues.
IUCN, on its part, will continue to mobilise its 1500+ Members and its 19,000+ Commission experts around the world to conserve, restore and better manage the world’s ecosystems and make them more resilient to climate change, while advocating for more urgent and ambitious global climate action.
"With every year of delay, our options narrow, but we are not powerless," said Dr Grethel Aguilar, Director General of IUCN. "While this report tells us that the world is set to exceed 1.5°C warming, crucially, it also stresses that we must accelerate emissions reductions now and act on the solutions we already have. Every fraction of a degree matters, and the choices we make today to minimise the magnitude and duration of the overshoot will shape the future of people and nature."
The report emphasises that the net zero goal remains an essential milestone towards achieving long-term net-negative emissions, which will be necessary to bring the temperature rise to or below 1.5 C by the end of the century.
It explicitly recognises Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) as an essential part of the response, but notes, importantly, that CDR cannot replace emission reductions, and that its expansion at scale carries risks, including to nature. Notably, even optimistic scaling of such removal is unlikely to deliver a reversal beyond a few tenths of a degree this century, according to the report.
The report further recognises that strong CDR governance frameworks will be needed, and stresses the importance of providing guardrails for the exploration of new and uncertain technologies that could have unintended negative consequences.
Anticipating this, IUCN Members adopted Resolution 8.041 at the World Conservation Congress in Abu Dhabi in October 2025, which mandates the development of an IUCN policy on geoengineering for Members' approval before the next Congress in 2029, guided by the precautionary principle and human rights obligations. The Resolution, which covers both CDR and solar radiation modification, discourages the use of geoengineering as an offset for the continued extraction and use of fossil fuels. This work is being carried forward through an IUCN Council Task Force established to support the development of the policy, in consultation with IUCN’s Members, Commissions and partners.
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