Lethal Heating: World on the brink: can leaders finally kick the fossil fuel habit?

Key Points

Current national pledges leave the world far off a 1.5°C pathway, locking in more dangerous warming.¹
Governments still plan to produce more than twice the fossil fuels consistent with 1.5°C this century.²
Most 1.5°C pathways now rely on temporary overshoot, raising the risk of irreversible tipping points.³
The COP28 deal to “transition away” from fossil fuels has not yet translated into concrete phase-out plans.⁴
COP29 is billed as a finance summit, yet its action agenda omits any explicit fossil fuel phase-out signal.⁵
Scientists stress that rapid, sustained emission cuts this decade are still able to reduce long-term risks, if political will materialises.⁶

Global climate diplomacy sits at a knife edge, as leaders promise transformation yet continue to bankroll a fossil fuel system that pushes the planet closer to dangerous tipping points.

Scientific assessments indicate that current national pledges will leave the world heading for warming well above 1.5°C, significantly increasing the risks of irreversible damage to ice sheets, forests, and coral reefs.¹

Governments have agreed in principle to move away from coal, oil and gas, but they still plan to produce more than twice the fossil fuels consistent with limiting heating to 1.5°C this century.²

Most modelled pathways that now keep 1.5°C in play assume a period where temperatures overshoot that limit before falling back, a strategy that scientists warn will magnify the risk of crossing climate tipping points and suffering more severe extremes.³

At the same time, fossil fuels still account for the majority of global greenhouse gas emissions, and recent data show that sector shifts towards renewables and electrification are not yet fast enough to displace them decisively.⁷

Diplomats left last year’s COP28 summit in Dubai with an unprecedented pledge to “transition away” from fossil fuels, yet the follow-up agenda for this year’s COP29 in Baku contains no explicit plan to phase them out.⁴

The gulf between scientific warnings and political action has turned climate policy into a test of whether governments, markets and societies are willing to confront entrenched interests, redirect trillions in capital and deliver a just transition at the speed the physics demands.⁶

The next few years will reveal whether the world breaks its fossil fuel habit through deliberate policy or is forced off it by escalating climate shocks and economic disruption.³

Science’s countdown on tipping points

The science of climate tipping points has shifted from a distant concern to a near-term risk, as global heating edges closer to levels where ice sheets, rainforests and ocean currents may change abruptly.³

Researchers describe tipping points as thresholds where gradual warming triggers large, self-reinforcing changes, such as the collapse of major ice sheets or the dieback of the Amazon rainforest, that are difficult or impossible to reverse on human timescales.³

Recent analyses highlight that even temporary overshoot of 1.5°C to levels approaching 2°C would increase the likelihood of triggering such thresholds and would intensify heatwaves, droughts and floods in many regions.³

Scientists contributing to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have emphasised that there is no fully safe level of warming, noting that damaging impacts are already occurring at about 1.3°C above pre-industrial levels.⁶

They stress that the difference between 1.5°C and higher levels is measured not only in fractions of a degree but in the scale of human suffering, biodiversity loss and economic disruption that societies will face.⁶

The emissions gap that will not close

The latest Emissions Gap Report from the United Nations Environment Programme finds that current policies and pledges leave the world far off track for limiting warming to 1.5°C, or even well below 2°C, this century.¹

Global greenhouse gas emissions reached a new high in 2023, and the report concludes that they must fall rapidly this decade, with annual reductions of several per cent, if 1.5°C is to remain a realistic goal.¹

Even under an optimistic scenario where all current national climate pledges and net zero targets are fully implemented, the report estimates that limiting warming to 1.5°C by 2100 has become extremely unlikely.³

Instead, the world is heading towards a temperature rise of well over 2°C, a level associated with far more severe climate impacts and a higher chance of crossing multiple tipping points.¹

UN climate officials frame this gap as a political failure, not a technological one, as cost-effective options now exist to cut emissions across energy, transport, buildings and industry if they are deployed at scale and speed.⁶

The stubborn power of fossil fuel production

Behind the emissions gap sits a production gap: the chasm between what governments say about climate ambition and what they plan to extract from coal, oil and gas fields.²

The most recent Production Gap analysis, summarised by independent researchers, finds that governments still intend to produce more than double the amount of fossil fuels that would be compatible with a 1.5°C pathway this century.²

This planned expansion persists despite the COP28 decision calling for a transition away from fossil fuels in the energy system and despite growing recognition that new long-lived fossil infrastructure may lock in future emissions or strand assets.⁴

Data presented alongside the Emissions Gap findings show that fossil fuels still account for around two thirds of global greenhouse gas emissions, underlining how central they remain to the problem.⁷

While renewable energy, batteries and energy efficiency have become cheaper and more widespread, their growth so far has added clean capacity faster than it has displaced fossil fuels, rather than driving an absolute decline in fossil use.⁷

Summits that signal, but do not yet deliver

On paper, the diplomatic landscape has shifted significantly since the Paris Agreement, with countries repeatedly affirming the goal of limiting warming to 1.5°C and recognising the need to cut emissions rapidly.⁶

COP28 in Dubai produced the first global agreement that explicitly called for a transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems, to reach net zero by mid-century in line with climate science.⁴

However, that text stopped short of demanding an outright phase-out of coal, oil and gas, and it left ample scope for continued investment in fossil fuels, including through language on transitional fuels and abatement technologies.⁴

As governments prepare for COP29 in Baku, billed as a “finance COP”, the presidency’s action agenda highlights climate finance, energy storage, grids and methane, but contains no explicit initiative on fossil fuel phase-out.⁵

This absence has drawn criticism from civil society groups and experts who argue that climate finance and fossil fuel phase-out are inseparable, because continued investment in extraction undermines the impact of any funding for clean solutions.⁸

The fight over “false solutions”

A growing rift has opened between those who argue for a rapid, managed decline of fossil fuels and those who back continued extraction buffered by carbon capture or future carbon removal.⁹

Many civil society organisations warn that heavy reliance on carbon capture and storage, or speculative carbon dioxide removal technologies, risks delaying the real cuts in fossil fuel use that are needed this decade.⁹

They argue that large offsets and trading schemes can create the illusion of progress while allowing emissions to rise, especially if credits do not represent real, additional and permanent reductions.⁹

Health and development advocates add that a fast, fair and fully funded phase-out of fossil fuels would bring immediate benefits for air quality and public health, especially in communities exposed to pollution from coal plants, refineries and traffic.¹⁰

They call on wealthy countries and major fossil fuel producers to stop expanding extraction and to provide far more finance and technology support so that lower-income nations can leapfrog to clean energy instead of locking in new fossil infrastructure.¹⁰

Finance, justice and trust

The question of who pays for the transition, and on what terms, lies at the heart of whether political will can be sustained to end dependence on fossil fuels.¹¹

At COP29, governments are expected to agree a new collective climate finance goal to replace the earlier pledge by rich countries to mobilise 100 billion US dollars a year, a promise that took years to meet and dented trust in the process.¹¹

Analysts and campaigners argue that the next goal needs to reach into the trillions of dollars over the coming decade, reflecting the scale of investment needed for clean energy, adaptation and loss and damage in vulnerable countries.¹¹

They emphasise that finance must be accessible, predictable and largely grant-based rather than adding to debt burdens, and that it must prioritise communities on the front lines of climate impacts.¹¹

Without such support, leaders in many lower-income countries face a stark political choice between exploiting fossil reserves for short-term revenue and keeping them in the ground for a shared global climate goal.¹¹

Will and action in the decisive years

The core question now is whether governments and societies will move from incremental change to a rapid, sustained transformation that matches the urgency set out by climate science.⁶

The IPCC’s most recent assessments state that the tools, knowledge and financial resources exist to reduce emissions deeply across all sectors, but that doing so requires immediate and far-reaching transitions in energy systems, cities, land use and industry.⁶

They underscore that every fraction of a degree matters, and that early and decisive cuts in emissions reduce long-term risks, even if some level of overshoot now appears difficult to avoid.⁶

For political leaders, this means confronting the power of fossil fuel interests, redirecting subsidies and investment towards clean infrastructure, and embedding climate justice into national plans so that workers and communities are not left behind.⁹

For societies, it demands sustained public pressure, electoral choices and civic action that reward long-term climate responsibility rather than short-term promises, turning the abstract idea of political will into concrete policy shifts.⁸

The window to avoid the most catastrophic tipping points is narrowing, yet scientists insist it has not closed, leaving the coming decade as a decisive test of whether humanity can finally break its addiction to fossil fuels.³

References

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06/12/2025

World on the brink: can leaders finally kick the fossil fuel habit? - Lethal Heating Editor BDA