BRUSSELS: National promises to cut emissions as part of preparations for a United Nations summit at the end of the year would cap global warming at the unacceptably high level of 3 degrees Celsius, the UN’s climate boss said on Tuesday.

The talks in Paris, starting on Nov. 30, will seek a global deal to curb warming, which scientists say needs to be limited to 2 degrees Celsius to avoid the most devastating consequences in the form of droughts and rising sea levels.

UN Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres said so far 62 nations had submitted promises, covering around 70 percent of global emissions.

The United Nations has said it will add up the pledges by the start of October and issue a report by Nov. 1. But Figueres said it was already a good “guestimate” that the pledges, known in UN language as INDCs (Intended Nationally Determined Contributions) would equate to 3 degrees of warming compared with pre-industrial times. Aware of the shadow cast by the 2009 Copenhagen summit, the last attempt to reach a global climate deal that ended in failure, EU officials and the UN stress Paris is a step, not the end result.

Figueres told reporters in Brussels she wanted it to be “pellucidly clear” that the INDCs were not the magic route to 2 degrees, set as a target by the Copenhagen Accord, from the current trajectory of 4-5 degrees.

“What the INDCs will do is mark a very substantial departure from business as usual,” she said. “Is three degrees acceptable? No.”

The U.N.’s plan to issue an INDC report by Nov. 1 is a departure from the early hopes of the most vulnerable nations and the European Union for a formal review to put pressure on the laggards before the Paris conference.