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The way the new @UNEP emissions gap report frames future warming outcomes is extremely confusing. The typical way to do this is what @climateactiontr does, e.g. saying that stated policies would result in future warming of around 2.6C (ranging from 2.1C to 3.3C). 1/5
What the emissions gap report says is that stated policies (conditional and unconditional NDCs) would result in 3C (66 per cent probability) by 2100. However, unless you are deep in the weeds of TCRE PDFs, you would not realize that these estimates are largely the same. 2/5
What this means is that this emissions pathway would have a 66% of remaining below 3C; the 66% value is itself based on the convention surrounding the 2C target, where the language of "well below 2C" has been interpreted as a 66% chance of avoiding that level of warming. 3/5
This then gets translated into simplified (and inaccurate) headlines like "Current NDCs remain seriously inadequate to achieve the climate goals of the Paris Agreement and would lead to a temperature increase of at least 3C by the end of the century." 4/5
In reality, the best estimate of warming associated with achieving both conditional and unconditional NDCs is <3C warming by 2100 (probably closer to 2.6C than 3C, though UNEP has different methods than CAT so its hard to know precisely). 5/5 @JoeriRogelj @Peters_Glen
