UN warns climate commitments ‘far’ from limiting global warming

Recent international commitments climate they are “very far” from meeting the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting global warming to +1.5°C, warned this Wednesday UNless than two weeks before COP27.

Far from limiting growth temperature At +1.5ºC or +2ºC, the treaty’s two symbolic thresholds, the 193 signatories’ plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions “could put the world on a warming path of +2.5ºC by the end of the century,” the office warns UN climate change in its latest summary of commitments received.

At COP26, held a year ago in Glasgow, UK, countries committed to increasing their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) every year, rather than every five years as stipulated in the 2015 agreement.

But on September 23, the deadline for taking them into account before a new conference due from November 6 to 18 in the Egyptian city of Sharm el-Sheikh, only 24 countries submitted a new or strengthened NCA.

The “disappointing” figure was Simon Still, director of the UN agency.

“We are very far from the level and speed emission reduction it is necessary to put us on the path to peace with a maximum temperature increase of +1.5 ºC,” he stressed in a written commentary on this synthesis.

“To maintain this goal, governments must step up their plans now and apply them over the next eight years,” he insisted.

“The goal of 1.5 degrees is in revival,” said the Secretary General United Nations, António Guterres, believing that the planet is moving towards a “catastrophic” evolution. “I would say we have two or three years to change the trajectory,” he told the BBC.

Resume the “fight”

According to experts from UNglobal emissions should be reduced by 45% by 2030 compared to 2010 levels.

This will achieve the goal set for temperature the middle of the pre-industrial era, when humanity began to massively use fossil fuels that produce greenhouse gases responsible for global warming.

This is a far cry from the new NDC synthesis where current liabilities would instead result in a 10.6% increase in emissions over the same period.

However, this will allow emissions to be reduced after 2030, which was not the case last year.

A few days after KS27where tens of thousands of delegates and “over 90” leaders from around the world, according to Egypt, will look at the planet’s climate future, this publication is a new warning.

effects changing of the climate they were felt like never before in 2022, with many countries hit by droughts, severe fires, heatwaves, floods or other natural disasters.

Little time for a “livable future”

But the concentration of methane, a powerful greenhouse gasrose to record levels in the atmosphere last year, as did CO2 and nitrous oxide, World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

In a separate study of long-term strategies for achieving carbon neutrality, published on Wednesday, UN Climate has calculated that the emissions of countries adopting such plans could be reduced by 68% if they were actually implemented. But he immediately warns that “many” of these plans are “vague” and have no specific application.

” KS27 this is an opportunity for world leaders to step up their fight against climate change,” Still said, urging “to move from negotiation to implementation and move towards the profound transformations that must occur in all sectors in the face of climate urgency.”

Last report from panel climate experts belonging UN (IPCC), published in 2021/22, warned that there is little time left to secure a “sustainable future” for humanity.

But while insisting on the need not to give up, scientists stress that every fraction of a degree of warming avoided counts and ask governments to do more to reduce emissions.

“The NDC report and the IPCC report are useful reminders,” said Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Choukri, who will serve as chairman KS27.

“It is important to raise ambition and urgently put it into practice to protect ourselves from severe climate impacts, loss and devastating damage,” he said in a statement.

(According to AFP)