GENEVA, 27 October 2026 — The world's current climate pledges would cut greenhouse gas emissions by only about 6% by 2035, far short of what scientists say is needed to keep global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, a United Nations report released on Tuesday, 27 October 2026, has found. On the same day, the UN weather agency reported that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere hit another record high in 2025, locking in more warming for decades and centuries to come.
Together, the two reports frame the stakes for the COP31 climate summit in Antalya, Türkiye, in November 2026: national promises have broadened and climate finance has grown, but the emissions cuts they would actually deliver remain roughly a tenth of the reduction needed for the 1.5-degree goal.
Illustration: A small emissions-cut bar beside a much taller bar showing the reduction scientists say is needed, with a globe and thermometer.
What Happened
The 2026 Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) Synthesis Report, published by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), examined 127 new NDCs representing 154 parties to the 2015 Paris Agreement, submitted between 1 January 2024 and 31 August 2026. The pledges cover around 70% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
Its central finding is stark. If countries implement their current pledges, global emissions are expected to fall only about 6% below 2019 levels by 2035. Even if conditional elements of those pledges — the parts that depend on extra finance, technology or support — are fully delivered, emissions would still fall only about 9% below 2019 levels by 2035.
That is far below the roughly 60% reduction from 2019 levels by 2035 that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change identifies as needed for a reasonable chance of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. For the Paris Agreement's fallback goal of keeping warming below 2 degrees, emissions would need to fall by about 37% by 2035. The report estimates that implementing current NDCs together with stated long-term decarbonisation targets would imply best-estimate warming of 1.7 to 2.3 degrees Celsius by the end of the century, while a separate UN Environment Programme assessment put the world on course for around 2.6 degrees under present commitments.
The report also notes progress of a different kind. Most new NDCs are now linked to long-term targets of reaching net zero between 2040 and 2070, most commonly by 2050. Ninety-eight percent of parties reported engaging a range of stakeholders — local authorities, civil society and businesses — in implementing their pledges, up from 70% under previous commitments, and 90% incorporated findings from the first global stocktake of climate action. Global climate finance rose to an estimated $1.9 trillion per year in 2023–24, driven largely by private investment in renewables and low-emission technology, though the report says that still falls far short of what rapid mitigation and adaptation require.
Separately on Tuesday, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) released its latest Greenhouse Gas Bulletin, reporting that the average global concentration of carbon dioxide reached 426.8 parts per million (ppm) in 2025 — 153% of the pre-industrial level of 1750, and a new record. Methane and nitrous oxide, the second and third most important long-lived greenhouse gases from human activity, also hit new peaks in 2025.
Background
Under the Paris Agreement, each country sets its own climate pledge, known as a nationally determined contribution, and each successive pledge is supposed to mark a progression over the last. The UNFCCC synthesis report is the official stocktake of what all those pledges add up to — and, year after year, the arithmetic has fallen short of the agreement's temperature goals.
The latest report's 6% figure is notably lower than last year's estimate of a 10% cut by 2035. That change reflects two things, according to reporting on the report: a large number of new NDCs have now arrived, replacing earlier modelling of missing pledges, and the United States has been taken out of the equation after withdrawing from the Paris Agreement for a second time under President Donald Trump, while pursuing policies that heavily favour fossil fuels.
The WMO bulletin measures something different but related: not annual emissions, but the stock of gases that has accumulated in the atmosphere. About half of the carbon dioxide emitted each year stays in the atmosphere, while the rest is absorbed by land ecosystems and oceans. When the bulletin was first published in 2004, the annual average carbon dioxide concentration was 377.5 ppm, compared with nearly 427 ppm today.
Growth rates of carbon dioxide have tripled since the 1960s, accelerating from an average of 0.8 ppm per year to 2.4 ppm per year in the decade from 2011 to 2020, the WMO reported. An exceptional surge of 3.5 ppm in 2023–24 coincided with a strong El Niño that reduced the efficiency of the biosphere through more drought, drier vegetation and more wildfires. The increase of 2.8 ppm from 2024 to 2025 was more modest but still, in the words of WMO senior scientific officer Oksana Tarasova, "a substantial addition of carbon to the atmosphere from fossil fuel burning."
Illustration: An atmospheric monitoring station with a rising graph representing record carbon dioxide levels.
Why It Matters
The two reports matter because they close off two comforting explanations at once. It is no longer possible to say that countries have not yet made pledges — 127 new ones are now on the table, covering most global emissions, and most come with net-zero dates. Nor is it possible to say that the atmosphere has not yet responded — carbon dioxide is at its highest level in the measurement record, and the warming effect of greenhouse gases has increased by 56% between 1990 and 2025, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Annual Greenhouse Gas Index cited by the WMO, with carbon dioxide accounting for about 81% of that increase.
"Every additional part per million matters because it traps additional heat," WMO Deputy Secretary-General Ko Barrett told journalists in Geneva. "In effect, we are supercharging the ocean and the atmosphere. That means that heat waves, tropical cyclones, and rainstorms are intensifying faster than our historical baselines prepared us for."
Barrett added: "Another year, another new record. Greenhouse gases are trapping an unprecedented amount of heat in the atmosphere, providing energy for more extreme weather and associated risks to our economies and societies. The past 11 years have been the warmest on record and this trend is set to continue. CO2 has a very long lifetime and so will affect the global climate not just for years but for decades and even centuries."
The bulletin also flags two less familiar risks from the energy transition itself. Sulphur hexafluoride, widely used as a spark suppressant in electricity distribution, has an atmospheric lifetime of over 1,000 years and a 100-year global warming potential of approximately 24,300 times that of carbon dioxide; its increase in 2025 was a record high. Molecular hydrogen, increasingly used for energy storage, rose 5.3% in concentration between 2010 and 2024, and leakage from production, pipelines and storage poses a growing concern because hydrogen influences atmospheric chemistry even though it is not itself a greenhouse gas.
What Happens Next
Attention now turns to COP31, the annual UN climate conference, which meets in Antalya, Türkiye, from 9 to 20 November 2026. The WMO releases its bulletin each year to give negotiators authoritative data ahead of the conference, and this year's numbers are expected to sharpen the central argument of the talks: that long-term net-zero promises must be converted into much larger near-term cuts.
UN climate chief Simon Stiell said COP31, "with its focus on practical measures to support greater implementation, can help address some of the key gaps." In practice, that means negotiations over climate finance, adaptation support for vulnerable countries, and mechanisms to turn pledges into policies — the step the synthesis report shows is still missing, since broader commitments have not yet translated into emissions reductions on the scale required.
Tarasova warned that a further increase in concentrations can be expected in 2026 because of continued fossil fuel burning and the development of a powerful El Niño, which would again weaken land carbon sinks as it did in 2023–24. For negotiators in Antalya, the message of 27 October is therefore both a deadline and a diagnosis: the pledges exist, the finance is growing, but on current plans the world remains on a path well above 1.5 degrees — and every year of delay adds to a stock of greenhouse gases that will shape the climate for centuries.
Illustration: Delegates around a conference table at a climate summit, with renewable energy visible through the windows.
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FAQ
What did the UN's 2026 NDC Synthesis Report find?
Current climate pledges would cut global emissions by only about 6% below 2019 levels by 2035, or about 9% if conditional elements are fully delivered — far below the roughly 60% needed for a reasonable chance of limiting warming to 1.5°C.
How many pledges did the report examine?
It examined 127 new NDCs representing 154 parties to the Paris Agreement, submitted between 1 January 2024 and 31 August 2026, covering around 70% of global emissions.
What did the WMO Greenhouse Gas Bulletin report?
Average carbon dioxide concentration reached a record 426.8 parts per million in 2025, or 153% of the 1750 pre-industrial level, with methane and nitrous oxide also at new peaks.
Why is the 6% figure lower than last year's 10% estimate?
According to reporting on the report, many previously missing pledges have now been submitted and modelled directly, and the United States has been removed from the calculation after withdrawing from the Paris Agreement.
What happens next?
Negotiators meet at COP31 in Antalya, Türkiye, from 9 to 20 November 2026, where the focus is expected to be turning long-term net-zero promises into larger immediate emissions cuts.
Sources
UNFCCC, 2026 Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) Synthesis Report, released 27 October 2026, as reported by The Hindu BusinessLine (PTI), AFP and Particle News on 27 October 2026. World Meteorological Organization, Greenhouse Gas Bulletin, released 27 October 2026, as reported by UN News, 27 October 2026. IPCC emissions-reduction benchmarks and UNEP warming projections as cited in those reports.
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