COMMENT: UNEP Gap report shows urgency of fossil fuel phase-out, as climate overshoot looms
Governments' continuing inaction, particularly by fossil fuel producers, would guarantee an escalation in climate impacts and risks - yet as UNEP shows, the tools to prevent this are available
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Comment on UNEP's Emissions Gap 2026 report
“The main takeaway is simple - governments need to get on with enacting policies that cut fossil fuel use as soon as possible," said Bill Hare, CEO of the global science and policy institute Climate Analytics.
"We know how to do that: this report is full of options that are proven to work, and our own analysis shows that if governments act with the highest possible ambition, we can halt global warming by mid-century close to 1.7°C and bring it back significantly below 1.5°C by the end of the century.
“All governments have a job to do but in particular it is time for major fossil fuel producers such as the US and Saudi Arabia (which produce 20-25% of fossil fuels globally) to stop playing politics and face the scientific reality. Right now they are looking at the fire, denying it exists and pouring more petrol on it, while their own citizens increasingly face searing heat, wildfires and other impacts.
“Every fraction of a degree over 1.5°C, every additional year of overshoot guarantees more climate impacts and bigger risks. Recent research shows that for every 0.1 degree warming, another 140 million people are exposed to dangerous heat. The Greenland ice sheet is at risk of irreversible collapse even now. Do the governments and fossil fuel producers of the world really want seven metres of sea level rise and the demise of many entire island countries as their legacy?"
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