The Pacific Islands Climate Action Network (PICAN) has warned that current global climate policies could drive temperatures up by 2.8°C this century, putting Pacific communities at greater risk of irreversible losses.
Responding to the United Nations Environment Programme’s (UNEP) Emissions Gap Report 2026: The Point of Return, PICAN says governments must urgently cut emissions rather than rely on uncertain future technologies to bring temperatures back down.
“Every fraction of a degree above 1.5°C carries consequences for our islands, our oceans and our people.
“Overshoot will bring irreversible losses, and no promise to bring temperatures back down decades from now can guarantee that what has been lost will ever be restored, PICAN director Dr Rufino Varea said.
The UNEP report warns that current policies could lead to 2.8°C of warming by the end of the century. Even if countries fully implement their existing climate pledges, temperatures are projected to rise by about 2.6°C.
To keep a 1.5°C limit within reach after a temporary overshoot, global greenhouse gas emissions would need to fall by 18 percent by 2030 and 45 percent by 2035, compared with 2025 levels.
Under the lowest-overshoot pathway, temperatures could peak at 1.7°C to 1.8°C around mid-century before declining.
Varea warned that the prospect of exceeding 1.5°C must not become an excuse for governments to delay action.
“The growing likelihood of overshoot must never become political permission for delayed action.
“Governments cannot continue expanding fossil fuel production while expecting future technologies to reverse the damage. For the Pacific, 1.5°C remains our survival threshold,” he said.
The report estimates that returning temperatures to 1.5°C by the end of the century could require removing about 320 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. However, the feasibility of removing carbon at that scale remains uncertain, and some climate impacts may be irreversible.
PICAN international policy lead Dr Sindra Sharma said Pacific communities could not depend on future carbon-removal technologies to make up for inadequate emissions cuts today.
“We cannot gamble the future of Pacific peoples on speculative promises of future carbon removal,”
“The solutions to cut emissions already exist. What remains missing is the political will to deliver them at the speed and scale required,” Dr Sharma said.
Dr Sharma said COP31 in Antalya, Türkiye, must address the gap between climate science and government action.
She called for an end to fossil fuel expansion, a just and equitable transition to cleaner energy, and increased climate finance for developing countries.
Dr Sharma also urged governments to ensure the latest assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change inform the second Global Stocktake, so international decisions reflect the best available science.
PICAN said it would take these demands to COP31, guided by its Pacific Climate Justice Demands and five red lines for climate justice
