Messi and Inter Miami will take on Atlanta United in an MLS Cup playoff opener

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Inter Miami's Lionel Messi played in only one Major League Soccer loss in 2024. It was in May, at home, against Atlanta United.

Messi makes his MLS playoff debut Friday night — at home, against Atlanta United.

Inter Miami, which set the MLS records for most points and best winning percentage in the regular season, gets a big challenge right out of the gate in the playoffs by facing an Atlanta team in a best-of-three Eastern Conference first-round series. Messi is coming off a hat trick in the regular-season finale, a 6-2 romp past New England.

And even though he missed nearly half the MLS season because of injury and commitments to Argentina's national team, Messi is still a serious contender for league MVP after 20 goals and 16 assists in 19 appearances.

“If I could vote for him, I would have voted for him," Inter Miami defender Julian Gressel said. “Yes, because for me, the MVP stands for the best player in the league. And Leo, is that, by far. You know, there’s other people out there that have the definition of an MVP that maybe makes the team better or that a team can’t live without. In a sense, to me, Leo is that, too.”

MVP or not, Messi is obviously the key to Inter Miami's MLS Cup hopes.

Friday night will be the first home playoff match in club history. If Inter Miami wins this series, it would stay home for the rest of the season — with home-field edge for the single-game conference semifinals, conference final and MLS Cup, provided it keeps winning.

“This was always about creating history for Miami,” said soccer icon David Beckham, part of Inter Miami’s ownership group — and the person who originally announced plans to bring an MLS team back to Miami more than a decade ago. “This was always about our family, La Familia, the people in this stadium, the people in this city.”

Messi's arrival midway through 2023 was the big step toward Inter Miami getting to the global stage. The team won the Leagues Cup last year shortly after Messi arrived, won the Supporters Shield this year as the best MLS regular-season team and now goes after the MLS playoff title.

There are some ties that bind these franchises. Among them: Inter Miami coach Gerardo “Tata” Martino was with Atlanta in 2018 when that team won the MLS Cup, and Gressel played for that Atlanta team as well.

Atlanta got to this series by beating Montreal in a wild-card match Tuesday. Its reward: Messi, again.

“He's arguably the best player that's ever played,” Atlanta United interim coach Rob Valentino said. “We've faced him a few times and we know obviously his qualities, but also at the same time, they have other players that are good, too. There has to be a focus on him — and his teammates around him.”

The stadium almost certainly will be sold out on Friday night and Miami has known for weeks that it would be opening the playoff march on its home field. It might not be the biggest moment in team history — Messi's debut would have to be that — but it's the most significant match of this season, at least in the sense that a best-of-three series doesn't leave much room for error.

“We’re kicking off our playoff run, so I think we’ll feel it," Inter Miami goalkeeper Drake Callender said. “I think everyone will feel it. And I think there’s a reason why we've come this far. We also didn't come this far just to get this far. So, we’re going to really just compete and, yeah, Friday, 8:30, it’s go time for us.”

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Inter Miami forward Lionel Messi (10) kicks the ball to score a goal as New England Revolution defender Xavier Arreaga, left, defends during the second half of an MLS soccer match, Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)

Inter Miami forward Lionel Messi, right, is lifted into the air by Jordi Alba (18) after scoring a goal during the second half of an MLS soccer match against the New England Revolution, Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)

Inter Miami forward Lionel Messi (10) scores a goal as New England Revolution defender Dave Romney, left, defends during the second half of an MLS soccer match, Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)

Inter Miami forward Lionel Messi reacts after scoring a goal during the second half of an MLS soccer match against the New England Revolution, Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)

Inter Miami forward Lionel Messi, right, reacts after scoring his third goal for a hat trick during the second half of an MLS soccer match against the New England Revolution, Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)

Inter Miami forward Lionel Messi (10) talks with head coach Gerardo "Tata" Martino during the second half of an MLS soccer match against the New England Revolution, Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)

Inter Miami forward Lionel Messi (10) celebrates with Luis Suarez, center, and Jordi Alba (18) after scoring a goal during the second half of an MLS soccer match against the New England Revolution, Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)

Inter Miami forward Lionel Messi, front, center right, celebrates with his teammates Sergio Busquets, front, center left, Luis Suárez, second row, left, and Drake Callender, center in green, after winning the Supporters' Shield, defeating the New England Revolution at Chase Stadium in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024. (David Santiago/Miami Herald via AP)

The world is on a path to get 1.8 degrees Celsius (3.2 Fahrenheit) warmer than it is now, but could trim half a degree of that projected future heating if countries do everything they promise to fight climate change, a United Nations report said Thursday.

But it still won't be near enough to curb warming's worst impacts such as nastier heat waves, wildfires, storms and droughts, the report said.

Under every scenario but the “most optimistic” with the biggest cuts in fossil fuels burning, the chance of curbing warming so it stays within the internationally agreed-upon limit "would be virtually zero," the United Nations Environment Programme's annual Emissions Gap Report said. The goal, set in the 2015 Paris Agreement, is to limit human-caused warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times. The report said that since the mid-1800s, the world has already heated up by 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.3 degrees Fahrenheit), up from previous estimates of 1.1 or 1.2 degrees because it includes the record heat last year.

Instead the world is on pace to hit 3.1 degrees Celsius (5.6 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times. But if nations somehow do all of what they promised in targets they submitted to the United Nations that warming could be limited to 2.6 degrees Celsius (4.7 degrees Fahrenheit), the report said.

In that super-stringent cuts scenario where nations have zero net carbon emissions after mid-century, there's a 23% chance of keeping warming at or below the 1.5 degrees goal. It's far more likely that even that optimistic scenario will keep warming to 1.9 degrees above pre-industrial times, the report said.

“The main message is that action right now and right here before 2030 is critical if we want to lower the temperature,” said report main editor Anne Olhoff, an economist and chief climate advisor to the UNEP Copenhagen Climate Centre. “It is now or never really if we want to keep 1.5 alive.”

Without swift and dramatic emission cuts “on a scale and pace never seen before,” UNEP Director Inger Andersen said “the 1.5 degree C goal will soon be dead and (the less stringent Paris goal of) well below 2 degrees C will take its place in the intensive care unit.”

Olhoff said Earth's on a trajectory to slam the door on 1.5 sometime in 2029.

“Winning slowly is the same as losing when it comes to climate change,” said author Neil Grant of Climate Analytics. “And so I think we are at risk of a lost decade.”

One of the problems is that even though nations pledged climate action in their targets submitted as part of the Paris Agreement, there's a big gap between what they said they will do and what they are doing based on their existing policies, report authors said.

The world's 20 richest countries — which are responsible for 77% of the carbon pollution in the air — are falling short of their stated emission-cutting goals, with only 11 meeting their individual targets, the report said.

Emission cuts strong enough to limit warming to the 1.5 degree goal are more than technically and economically possible, the report found. They just aren't being proposed or done.

The report ”shows that yet again governments are sleepwalking towards climate chaos," said climate scientist Bill Hare, CEO of Climate Analytics, who wasn't part of the report.

Another outside scientist, Johan Rockstrom, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, said the report confirms his worst concerns: “We are not making progress and are now following a 3.1 degree path, which is, with next to zero uncertainty, a path to disaster."

Both the 3.1 degree and 2.6 degree calculations are a tenth of a degree Celsius warmer than last year’s version of the UN report, which experts said is within the margin of uncertainty.

Mostly the problem is “there's one year less time to cut emissions and avoid climate catastrophe,” said MIT's John Sterman, who models different warming scenarios based on emissions and countries policies. “Catastrophe is a strong word and I don't use it lightly,” he said, citing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's latest report saying 3 degrees of warming would trigger severe and irreversible damage.

The report focuses on what's called an emissions gap. It calculates a budget of how many billions of tons of greenhouse gases — mostly carbon dioxide and methane — the world can spew and stay under 1.5 degrees, 1.8 degrees and 2 degrees of warming since pre-industrial times. It then figures how much annual emissions have to be slashed by 2030 to keep at those levels.

To keep at or below 1.5 degrees, the world must slash emissions by 42%, and to keep at or below 2 degrees, the cut has to be 28%, the report, named, “No more hot air... please !” said.

In 2023, the world spewed 57.1 billion metric tons (62.9 billion U.S. tons) of greenhouse gases, the report said. That’s 1,810 metric tons (1,995 U.S. tons) of heat-trapping gases a second.

“There is a direct link between increasing emissions and increasingly frequent and intense climate disasters,” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a video messaged released with the report. “We're playing with fire, but there can be no more playing for time. We're out of time.”

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Read more of AP’s climate coverage at http://www.apnews.com/climate-and-environment

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Pumpjacks operate in a pasture, Monday, Sept. 30, 2024, near Hays, Kan. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)