Two United Nations bodies reported on 27 October, and their findings point the same way. The UN climate secretariat’s 2026 synthesis of nationally determined contributions (NDCs) covers 127 new national climate plans submitted by 154 parties to the Paris Agreement, representing about 71% of total global emissions in 2019. It projects that total global greenhouse-gas emissions, including land use, will peak and decline by 2035 to an average of 6% below 2019 levels, within a range of 0% to 12%. Full implementation of the plans’ conditional elements would deepen the average cut to around 9%.
The same day the World Meteorological Organization’s 22nd Greenhouse Gas Bulletin put 2025 global averages at 426.8 parts per million of carbon dioxide, 1,948 parts per billion of methane and 339.1 ppb of nitrous oxide, respectively 53%, 167% and 26% above pre-industrial levels. All three were records. “Another year, another new record,” said Ko Barrett, the WMO’s deputy secretary-general.
What the 6% figure does and does not show
Climate Home News reported that countries’ plans “would cut global emissions only half as much by 2035 as the UN projected a year ago”. The comparison needs care. The earlier figure of about 12% came from the secretariat’s update of 10 November 2025, which covered 86 NDCs from 113 parties, or 69% of 2019 emissions. This year’s set is larger and, according to Climate Home, the American pledge has been “excluded from the tally” because the US has left the Paris Agreement. The halving therefore reflects a different group of countries and assumptions, not only weaker ambition. This year’s upper bound equals last year’s central estimate.
On any reading the gap is wide. Climate Home notes that emissions would need to fall by 60% over the same period to limit warming to 1.5°C. The secretariat says that implementing the NDCs together with long-term targets implies best-estimate warming of 1.7–2.3°C by the end of the century, which assumes those long-term targets are met; Climate Home put the range for the latest NDCs at 2.1–3.2°C, depending on what countries do beyond 2035. Simon Stiell, the UN Climate Change executive secretary, said “collective progress remains clearly insufficient”.
Why it matters for net-zero asset owners
An asset owner’s net-zero commitment depends on a real economy decarbonising around it. When national plans imply a cut of about 6% by 2035 against a 1.5°C requirement of about 60%, portfolio targets met mainly by reweighting away from heavy emitters say little about real-world emissions, and become harder to defend to members and beneficiaries. Interim targets set on the assumption that policy would tighten steadily now look exposed.
There is better news at the margin. The secretariat expects global emissions to peak and decline by 2035. The WMO found that methane rose less in 2025 than in 2024 and less than its ten-year average, while the increase in carbon dioxide, though slightly above the 2016–2025 average, was smaller than the anomalously high jump of the year before.
The physical side moves whatever happens to pledges. Record concentrations of long-lived gases argue for more weight on hotter scenarios in strategic asset allocation, in physical-risk assumptions for real assets and in insurers’ catastrophe models. Brussels reached a similar view the same day, proposing that a path to 3°C of warming by 2100 serve as the baseline assumption for decisions on “policies, assets and investments”. For boards, a practical test is to ask how transition plans perform across the full 0% to 12% range rather than against one headline figure.
What to watch
COP31 opens in Antalya, Türkiye, on 9 November and runs until 20 November, with Murat Kurum nominated as president and Australia’s Chris Bowen as president of negotiations. Stiell says the summit “can help address some of the key gaps highlighted in this year’s reports” and calls boosting electrification, curbing methane and progress towards zero waste “important steps in the right direction”. Watch whether late submissions move the 0% to 12% range before the summit, and whether its texts shift from ambition towards implementation.
Sources
- Nationally determined contributions under the Paris Agreement. Synthesis report by the secretariat (FCCC/PA/CMA/2026/9), UNFCCC, 27 October 2026
- 2026 NDC Synthesis Report, UNFCCC, 27 October 2026
- UN Climate Change reports show Paris Agreement supporting whole-of-economy approaches, but progress still clearly insufficient; more implementation and acceleration needed, UNFCCC, 27 October 2026
- Message to Parties and observers: Nationally Determined Contributions Synthesis Report – Update, UNFCCC, 10 November 2025
- WMO Greenhouse Gas Bulletin - No. 22, World Meteorological Organization, 27 October 2026
- Greenhouse gas levels once again reach record high, World Meteorological Organization, 27 October 2026
- National climate plans now promise half the emission cuts expected by UN, Climate Home News, 27 October 2026
- UN Climate Change Conference - Antalya, November 2026, UNFCCC, accessed 1 November 2026
- A Resilient Europe for a Changing Climate (COM(2026) 720 final), European Commission, 27 October 2026