World governments’ climate pledges for the next decade are expected to reduce global emissions for the first time ever, although not enough to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement, the United Nations’ climate change body said on Tuesday.
Global emissions in 2035 should fall 10% compared to 2019, the secretary general of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Simon Stiell, said in a statement. But the pace of reduction was “not nearly fast enough” to respect the planet’s climate boundaries, he warned.
To avoid the worst consequences of climate change, global warming should not increase by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels, the aspirational target set in the 2015 agreement.
Insufficient
According to the UN, this would be possible only if 2019 emissions were to be cut by 60% by 2035. To keep global warming below the Paris Agreement’s upper limit of 2°C, emissions would need to be cut by at least 35% over the next ten years.
This means that a 10% cut – an estimate that the UN acknowledges is based on limited data – would be far short of what is needed to respect either red line. The figure is also understood to consider at least one optimistic assumption about developments in the US.
The outgoing Biden administration pledged to cut emissions by at least 61% by 2035 compared to levels thirty years earlier, but President Trump swiftly moved to pull out of the global effort as he doubled down on an anti-green agenda.
The US will be formally out of the Paris Agreement in January, but Washington was not the only centre of power to give the UNFCCC secretariat a headache.
Only about one-third of nearly 200 signatories of the Paris Agreement presented their formal climate pledges by last September’s extended deadline, and major emitters such as China and India are among the laggards.
Self-styled global climate action leader the EU has also yet to submit its ‘nationally determined contribution’ (NDC).
The UN’s 10% emission cut forecast is based on both formal pledges and declarations that Brussels, Beijing, and others made at a Climate Summit in New York last month.
The UN analysis of the 64 pledges that were submitted in time was published today and indicates that these countries, including the US, are expected to cut their emissions by a total of 17% compared to 2019 levels.
A more complete analysis can be expected when more governments file their pledges before the next round of climate talks at the COP30 summit that kicks off on 10 November in the Brazilian city of Belém.
‘Monumental’ opportunity
According to UN climate policy chief Stiell, the conference should show that the world is still ready to cooperate on accelerating greenhouse gas emissions reduction and to “connect climate action to people’s lives” and ensure “everyone shares in its vast benefits”.
He said that the opportunities offered by climate action were “monumental” as it “emerges as the economic growth and jobs engine of the 21st century”.
“We are still in the race, but to ensure a liveable planet for all eight billion people today, we must urgently pick up the pace, at COP30 and every year thereafter,” he said.
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