UN Environment Programme says US emissions rose 133 megatonnes in 2025, the largest increase of any country

The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said in its Emissions Gap Report 2026: The Point of Return that global warming will exceed 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. According to the Spanish-language version of the UN News account, the report also finds that global emissions stalled in 2025 but that US emissions grew by 133 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, the largest increase of any country.

UNEP said that if current policies continue, warming could reach 2.8°C within this century and keep rising afterwards. If every national climate action plan is delivered and similar efforts continue, it said, warming will be limited to 2.6°C. The report says these outcomes are worse than last year's projections. It gives two causes: the United States withdrawing from the Paris Agreement, and revised estimates of historical emissions. New national plans submitted since the last report have hardly made a difference, it says.

UNEP said the US increase was driven by higher electricity demand and a rebound in coal-fired generation. The next largest increases were in Türkiye, Iran and Indonesia. UNEP also reported that the United States is the only Annex I country that has not submitted an emissions inventory since 2024. It is one of three G20 members, with Argentina and Saudi Arabia, that have not submitted new mitigation targets for 2035.

UNEP also warned of a misleading statistical effect. The global gap between projected emissions and the 2030 goals looks narrower than last year, but UNEP says this does not reflect stronger policy action. The reason, it says, is that the US withdrawal led to its national target being removed from the global totals and replaced with projections based on its current policies, which are higher. Apart from these changes, UNEP says, the 2030 gap has barely moved.

The report does not put the blame on the United States alone. It says China, India, Indonesia and Russia also recorded increases or changes in 2025. India broke a trend of fast growth thanks to renewables, it says, while China may be close to its emissions peak in the coming years. Over the past decade, 124 countries raised their emissions and 63 cut them. The G20, excluding the African Union, still accounts for 76 per cent of global emissions. Of its 17 members, only 14 have submitted new targets for 2035.

UNEP set out a “lowest possible” overshoot scenario in which peak warming, reached by roughly mid-century, is held to 1.7 to 1.8°C. That requires cutting emissions by 18 per cent by the end of the decade, 45 per cent by 2035 and 69 per cent five years later, all against 2025 levels. Secretary-General António Guterres, in a video message for the launch in Nairobi, said that is close to 6 per cent every single year until 2035.

Guterres said: “Overshoot is not surrender.” He added: “We can still keep it as small and as short as possible – and bring temperatures back below 1.5 degrees by the end of the century.” In the same message he said: “The emissions gap is now a leadership gap.” UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen said countries “must pull out all the stops” to limit peak warming, and that “this is possible”.

The UN is a party to this story: UNEP wrote the report and the Secretary-General promoted it. This paper cannot check UNEP's figures. The sources supplied carry no response from the US government. The English-language UN News account does not mention the US emissions figure, which appears in the Spanish-language version.