The 1.5 degree Celsius temperature target is now completely out of reach and the best that the world can now hope for is to restrict the global rise in temperatures to 1.8 degree Celsius and try to pull it back after that, a new UN report has said.

The Emissions Gap Report, published by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) every year ahead of the annual year-ending climate conference, has said that the breach of 1.5 degree Celsius target, set in the 2015 Paris Agreement, was now “unavoidable”. The opportunity to hold the temperature rise within 1.5 degree Celsius from pre-industrial times, or allow only a limited ‘overshoot’, has been lost, it said.

“Decades of insufficient climate action makes exceedance of 1.5 degree Celsius (temperature target) unavoidable,” this year’s edition of Emissions Gap Report, released on Wednesday, said.

“The task now, therefore, is not only to ensure that global warming stays well below 2 degree Celsius, but to minimize the duration and magnitude of overshoot and establish a…