Losing more ground in the fight against climate change, humanity is heading toward a warmer world than scientists projected last year—and the United States is a major reason for this, according to a new United Nations report.
Even if all countries do what they promised to reduce the heat-trapping emissions, the Earth is likely to warm about 2.2 degrees Fahrenheit above current temperatures, according to Wednesday’s update of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) climate calculations. This is roughly two-tenths of a Fahrenheit degree higher than last year’s projections by the same scientific team.
“This is a worse result than expected last year, arising from the formal withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Agreement and revised estimates of historical emissions,” the report said.
The document also blames the United States for the rise in emissions last year, noting that all of the other 20 leading economies reduced their carbon pollution or, at least, slowed the growth in the amount of carbon dioxide released by burning coal, oil and gas.
“In terms of magnitude, the increase in the United States of America (133 megatonnes of CO2 equivalent) far outpaced that of all other countries and was driven by higher electricity demand and by a return of power generation to coal,” the report states. The 124 countries that increased emissions – not counting the 63 that reduced them, as most European nations did – added 189 million tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2025, and 70% of that increase came from the United States, according to the document.
The United States is “racing ahead to block renewables while actively promoting and subsidizing dirty coal – and its diplomacy tries to make other countries also back off from action. It is looking at the fire, denying that there is fire and then pouring more gasoline on it,” said Australian climate scientist Bill Hare, CEO of Climate Analytics, which measures countries’ climate plans. He did not participate in the UN report, but, like several other external scientists, said it is scientifically solid.
Far beyond the Paris climate target
The new calculations say that, if countries fulfill everything they promised in the climate plans they presented to the United Nations, by 2100 the planet will be 2.6 degrees Celsius (4.7 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than in pre-industrial times. If the world continues on the current trajectory – without national promises – it will be 2.8 degrees Celsius (5 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than in the second half of the 19th century, the same as last year’s projection.
Both temperatures far exceed the target of less than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) and, ideally, 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit), adopted by the Paris climate pact of 2015. The world is today about 1.4 degrees Celsius (2.5 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels and, at the start of this year—and again in this report—UN officials acknowledged that there is no way to limit warming to the 1.5 degree target they had embraced. Instead, they express hope of limiting warming to about 1.8 degrees Celsius (3.2 Fahrenheit) and then, somehow, removing enough carbon dioxide from the air to bring temperatures back to 1.5 degrees.
The world is becoming “dangerously off” even from these targets, said UN Secretary-General António Guterres, “but we have the tools to change course and retreat from the brink of the abyss.”
