The yawning gap between the sharp cuts in emissions required to meet the goals of the Paris accord and current projections was laid bare by a UN report that concluded the window was closing to prevent the worst effects of damaging climate change.

The definitive annual assessment of global climate pledges found “no sign” that levels of emissions in the atmosphere would peak soon, despite the fact that meeting the Paris goals requires global emissions reductions of at least 2.7 per cent each year for the next decade.

The Paris accord of 2015 aims to limit global warming to well below 2C, with efforts to keep it below 1.5C, in order to limit the worst impacts of climate change. Yet existing pledges are so inadequate that they correspond to about 3.2C of warming by the end of the century, the report published on Tuesday said.