Global carbon emissions will rise to a new record level in 2018, making the chances of reaching a target to keep temperature increases to 1.5 or 2°C “weaker and weaker every year, every month,” the head of the International Energy Agency (IEA) has said.

IEA’s Fatih Birol told a conference in Paris that data for the first nine months of the years was already pointing to a record increase in carbon emissions.

A United Nations report last week said society would have to make deep changes to how it consumes energy, travels and builds, to meet a lower global warming target, according to Euractiv.com and Reuters.

Global emissions would need to peak soon after 2020 and decline sharply afterwards in order to keep temperature rise within 1.5°C or 2°C, said a report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

“Sorry, I have very bad news. My numbers are giving me some despair,” Birol told the conference at the Polish embassy in Paris on Wednesday (17 October).

Poland will host United Nations COP24 talks in December, which will lay out a “rule book” to implement a historic accord reached in Paris in 2015.