Paris: On Thursday, the UN urged for enormous global action to prevent catastrophic warming and stated that countries have only a few months to accelerate their climate plans.
The annual Emissions Gap report from the UN Environment Program was published in advance of the COP29 climate conference in Azerbaijan and the impending deadline for nations to revise and enhance their carbon-cutting pledges.
According to the UN, the current crop of climate plans has set the globe on course for catastrophic warming, putting humanity at risk of catastrophic outcomes and irreversible tipping points in the oceans and on land. This is why new targets are important. Emissions should be declining, but they are continually increasing. And quickly. Here are some important lessons learned:
The current state of play
Planet-heating pollution increased 1.3% in 2023 compared to 2022, mostly due to the burning of coal, oil, and gas, but also from agricultural and forest loss. 57.1 billion tons of CO2 or its equivalent in other greenhouse gases were released, setting a new record. The prospect of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, which has long been recognized as a threshold for a comparatively climate-safe future, albeit one nevertheless roiled by severe repercussions, is progressively threatened with each year of increases.
Emissions must be reduced by more than 40 percent from 2019 levels by 2030 in order to maintain 1.5C. By 2030, global emissions will have decreased by 9% annually, according to UN leader Antonio Guterres.
To put it in perspective, excessive lockdowns and travel restrictions caused 2020 emissions to drop by about 5% from the year before.
Strong hitters
According to the UNEP assessment, the major economies of the G20, excluding the African Union, are responsible for the majority of global greenhouse gas emissions, accounting for 77% of the total in 2023.
Additionally, China accounted for 30% of global carbon emissions last year, followed by the US at 11% and India at 8%.
The United Nations numbers, which do not include greenhouse gases from land use and forestry, show that the 27-nation European Union produced 6%. Only the US and the EU, two of the largest polluters in the world, witnessed decreases from 2022 last year (down 1.4 and 7.5 percent, respectively).
Others were moving in the other direction, with India’s emissions increasing by 6.1 percent and China’s increasing by 5.2 percent.
Promises, promises
Under the Paris Agreement, nearly 200 nations have formally committed to reducing their carbon emissions. A new batch of promises is anticipated early next year, ahead of the UN climate negotiations in Brazil. These are known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC), and they are anticipated to be updated and reinforced every five years. UNEP demanded that these demonstrate a “quantum leap” in aspiration.
This is due to the fact that the globe would still be headed for catastrophic 2.6C of global warming by 2100 even if all of the current NDCs were fully implemented. And action in the actual world is falling further behind. 3.1C is implied by current policy.
Equitable portion?
According to UNEP data, the United States continues to have the largest carbon footprint when considering all historical emissions from 1850 to 2022, accounting for 20% of the total.
Over the course of 172 years, India has contributed 3% of carbon pollution, while China and the EU are tied at 12%.
