Warming is inevitable

The world is perilously close to breaching the 1.5 degrees Celsius warming threshold enshrined in the 2015 U.N. Paris Climate Agreement. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said there is a 66% chance Earth's temperature will rise by more than 1.5 degrees by 2027. The odds of exceeding threshold have "risen steadily since 2015," when they were near zero, the WMO report said. Just last year the group put the chances of doing so within the next five years at 50-50, Reuters reported.

The temperature is unlikely to stay above the 1.5 degrees threshold for very long, at least at first. The temporary jump is partially linked to the upcoming El Niño Southern Oscillation. But fossil fuels are the underlying driver of long-term global warming, and they're still heavily in use. A 2022 assessment from the Global Carbon Budget warned that the world had less than a decade to significantly reduce its level of greenhouse gas emissions, or it will blow through the "carbon budget" allotted to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius in the long run. Meeting that goal is becoming less and less likely, forcing global leaders to grapple with some hard truths.

Is 1.5 degrees Celsius still within reach?

Not unless the world starts making way more of an effort to cut emissions. To meet the 1.5 degree goal, emissions would need to peak by 2025 at the absolute latest, which seems highly unlikely. The temperature increase is already at 1.2 degrees Celsius. The U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a report in 2022 warning it is "almost inevitable" that the world temperature will surpass 1.5 degrees Celsius.

The coming years will likely act as an example of what the world will look like at 1.5 degrees. "This report does not mean that we will permanently exceed the 1.5 degrees Celsius level," said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas. "However, WMO is sounding the alarm that we will breach the 1.5 degrees Celsius level on a temporary basis with increasing frequency."

Under current emissions-reduction efforts, the world is en route to 2.6 degrees of warming by the end of the century, according to the U.N. Emissions Gap Report. If every country were to meet its U.N. pledge, that could be reduced to a 1.8-degree increase. But governments are not prioritizing climate action. Of the 193 countries that signed on to the Paris agreement, only 24 brought actual plans to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to COP27, the annual U.N. climate summit. The U.S.'s emissions increased by 1.3% in 2022 and global emissions increased by under 1% compared to 2021. "In terms of a trajectory and also in terms of policies, we are just not on track for 1.5 or even 2 degrees," Julia Steinberger, economist and professor from Switzerland's University of Lausanne, told CNBC.

Why are we missing the mark?

Political dithering and global economic pressures have made it hard for many countries to reach their goals. Gas prices spiked all over the world due to the war in Ukraine, as well as the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) slashing oil production. With desperate times come desperate measures: President Biden softened his stance on oil and gas leases in light of the surging energy costs. He was criticized for his approval of the Willow Project, which is said to produce "180,000 barrels of oil per day at its peak," according to ConocoPhillips.