The chart shows global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in billions of tonnes of CO₂ equivalent (GtCO₂e): recent historical emissions (solid line), the emissions projected under a chosen policy assumption (dashed line), and two pathways that are consistent with the Paris Agreement temperature goals: below 2°C and the lowest 1.5°C overshoot.

Use the ‘Policy assumption’ dropdown under the chart to switch between current policies, unconditional NDCs, conditional NDCs, and conditional NDCs plus net-zero pledges (NDCs are Nationally Determined Contributions – the official national climate plans submitted every 5 years under the Paris Agreement). The source only gives projections for some years for each assumption, so the lines cover different years.

The emissions gap is the difference between the emissions expected under a policy assumption and the emissions of a pathway that meets a temperature goal. The thin vertical bars show this gap in each year: the bar on the left of each year is the gap to the lowest 1.5°C overshoot pathway, the bar on the right the gap to the below 2°C pathway. Hover over (or tap) a point or a bar to see its value and range.

The shaded areas are the uncertainty ranges. Click on the legend to show or hide any series. The menu at the top right of the chart has Display options (uncertainty ranges on or off, numbers beside the gap bars), Export and full screen.

Numbers are shown as the source gives them: whole GtCO₂e for projections, pathways and gaps, and one decimal place for historical emissions.

Visualisation by Climateninja.org.

All data is taken from the United Nations Environment Programme’s Emissions Gap Report 2026:

United Nations Environment Programme (2026). Emissions Gap Report 2026: The point of return – Urgent emissions cuts needed to come back from overshoot of 1.5°C. Olhoff, A. (chief ed.), Lamb, W., Kuramochi, T., Rogelj, J., Pelz, S., Khanna, T., Boehm, S., den Elzen, M., Jeffery, L., Minx, J., Muûls, M., Pachauri, S., Pathak, M., Riahi, K. and Sudharmma Vishwanathan, S. (eds). Nairobi. https://doi.org/10.59117/20.500.11822/50038.

Tables used: Table 2.1 (historical total global GHG emissions 2023–2025, with their 90% confidence intervals), Table 4.2 (the below 2°C and lowest 1.5°C overshoot pathways in 2030, 2035, 2040 and 2050: central pathway and minimum–maximum range) and Table 4.3 (projected emissions under each policy assumption, median and range, and the estimated emissions gaps). Emissions are aggregated with 100-year global warming potentials from the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report.

The 2026 report redefines the 1.5°C benchmark: as it is no longer possible to limit warming to 1.5°C with no or limited overshoot, the gap is now measured against a ‘lowest 1.5°C overshoot’ scenario, which limits peak warming to 1.7–1.8°C (66% chance) and returns global temperatures to 1.5°C or below by 2100 with around a 50% chance. The ‘around 1.5°C’ pathway used in earlier reports is therefore not shown.

The gap bars use the gap values of Table 4.3, drawn down from the policy median. The source calculates the gaps from unrounded numbers, so the bottom of a bar can differ by about 1 GtCO₂e from the pathway value in Table 4.2 (for example, in 2030 the lowest 1.5°C overshoot pathway is 49 GtCO₂e, while current policies 57 minus the gap of 9 gives 48).

© 2026 United Nations Environment Programme. The report states that it may be reproduced in whole or in part and in any form for educational or non-profit services without special permission from the copyright holder, provided acknowledgement of the source is made, and that no use may be made of it for resale or any other commercial purpose without prior permission in writing from UNEP.

Charts made with Apache ECharts (Apache License 2.0).