NEW DELHI: India tops in the emission of greenhouse gases (GHG) in the world, the Emissions Gap Report 2025 by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has revealed while warning of serious escalation of climate risks and damages.
“The highest absolute increase in total GHG emissions, excluding land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF), was observed in India and China, while Indonesia recorded the fastest relative growth in emissions,” the report released on November 4 states.
GHG emissions of the G20 members, excluding the African Union, account for 77 per cent of global emissions and increased by 0.7 per cent in 2024. Many countries outside of G20 also showed significant increases in emissions in 2024. Of the six largest emitters of GHGs, which includes China, US and Russia, the European Union was the only one to decrease emissions in 2024, the UN body found.
UNEP’s assessment of available new climate pledges under the Paris Agreement found that the predicted global temperature rise over the course of this century has only slightly fallen, leaving the world heading for a serious escalation of climate risks and damages. The world remains far off track to meet the Paris Agreement’s 1.5 degree Celsius target.
Despite modest progress in emissions reduction pledges, current global trajectories are projected to heat the planet by as much as 2.8°C above pre-industrial levels by 2100.
“Global warming projections over this century, based on full implementation of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), are now 2.3 – 2.5 degrees Celsius, compared to 2.6 – 2.8 degrees Celsius last year. Implementing only current policies would lead to up to 2.8°C of warming, compared to 3.1°C last year, the report states.
The report found that the multi-decadal average of global temperature rise will exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius, at least temporarily. This, according to the report, will be difficult to reverse – requiring faster and bigger additional reductions in greenhouse gas emissions to minimise overshoot, reduce damages to lives and economies, and avoid over-reliance on uncertain carbon dioxide removal methods.
“Scientists tell us that a temporary overshoot above 1.5 degrees is now inevitable – starting, at the latest, in the early 2030s. And the path to a livable future gets steeper by the day,” the UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, said in his message on the report. “But this is no reason to surrender. It’s a reason to step up and speed up. 1.5 degrees by the end of the century remains our North Star. And the science is clear: this goal is still within reach. But only if we meaningfully increase our ambition,” the message added.
The size of the cuts required, and the short time left to deliver them, means that the multi-decadal average of global temperature will now exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius, very likely within the next decade.
“Stringent near-term cuts to emissions could delay the onset of overshoot, but not avoid it entirely. The big task ahead is to strive to make this overshoot temporary and minimal, through rapid emissions cuts that keep returning to 1.5 degree Celsius by 2100 in the realms of possibility,” the report states.
According to UNEP, every fraction of a degree avoided reduces an escalation of the damages, losses and health impacts that are harming all nations – while hitting the poorest and most vulnerable the hardest – and reduces the risks of climate tipping points and other irreversible impacts.
Minimising overshoot would also reduce reliance on uncertain, risky and costly carbon dioxide removal methods – which would need to permanently remove and store about five years of current global annual carbon dioxide emissions to reverse each 0.1 degree Celsius of overshoot,” the report states.