The eighth UN Environment Emissions Gap Report provides an up-to-date scientific assessment of the global progress towards the emissions reductions required to be on track to meet the long-term goal of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The overall conclusion of the assessment is that government and other stakeholder’s emissions reduction commitments are far from the level of ambition required for an emissions pathway consistent with staying below a 2°C, let alone a 1.5°C, temperature increase.

This chapter provides an update on the mitigation challenge associated with the global temperature goal of the Paris Agreement, and the estimated global emission levels under various assumptions regarding the implementation of current policies and NDCs or INDCs (hereafter referred to as NDCs, unless specifically mentioned in relation to a country that has not ratified the Paris Agreement).