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Action needed to avoid disastrous overshoot of climate targets, according to organisation’s environment body.

Global average temperatures are likely to continue at or near record levels this year and for the next four years afterwards, the United Nations warned Thursday. Climate Analytics' CEO Bill Hare said, "Our research shows that if governments act now to reduce their emissions as quickly as possible, global warming can be halted by mid-century and then returned well below the Paris Agreement limit of 1.5°C."

“This is just physics,” said climate scientist Bill Hare, “we’re losing the ability to limit warming even by two degrees without strong action and people need to be aware of that and be aware that it’s a political failure. It’s not an act of God or anything. It is just because politicians in many places are not acting fast enough.”

Climate Analytics’ Bill Hare warns that a failure to align the the IPCC cycle with the global stocktake could result in less robust science being considered:

“There’s a general consensus that the IPCC is the best available science. It is the formal science, if you like, delivered to the Paris Agreement and climate convention. So, if that doesn’t happen, then it opens the space for other sources of so-called science to come in.” 

Dr Bill Hare, CEO and senior scientist at Climate Analytics, tells Carbon Brief that “the majority of countries, across geographies and levels of development, including least developed countries and small island developing states” support a timeline where the AR7 reports align with the stocktake.

The impending overshoot of the Paris Agreement's 1.5°C limit will raise the temperature and political pressure at COP talks in the future, and shift the debate from hot air to action, Climate Analytics CEO Bill Hare tells Carbon Pulse.

“The 1.5°C limit [for rising global temperatures] and the net zero goal have reshaped policy, finance, litigation and sectoral rules, helping to rewire how states, markets and institutions work,” Bill Hare told The Guardian.

The projected global temperature increase by the end of the century has fallen by at least 1°C in the decade since the landmark agreement was struck. “That means Paris has already reduced future risks for people and ecosystems: fewer extreme heat events, lower sea-level rise, and less pressure on vulnerable communities than in a 3–4C world,” said Bill Hare.

“This progress is proof that multilateralism is working, it is delivering,” Manjeet Dhakal of the Climate Analytics South Asia told us from Belém. “Having said that, it is simply not enough. Emissions need to go down much further, and a lot of it is tied to developed countries providing climate finance to do so.”

“The big problem is that progress has flattened in the last few years, both in terms of targets put forward by countries and policies put in place. Ten years after Paris, COP30 will have to deal with some of this delay with urgency,” Hare said.