The world is perilously off course in meeting the Paris climate deal’s goals for slashing carbon pollution and boosting finance for the developing world, according to the UN’s first progress report on the accord.
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The 2015 Paris treaty has successfully driven climate action, but “much more is needed now on all fronts,” said the report, which will underpin a crucial climate summit in Dubai at the end of the year.
“The world is not on track to meet the long-term goals of the Paris Agreement,” including capping global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius since pre-industrial times, the report said.
Global greenhouse gas emissions must peak by 2025 and drop sharply thereafter to keep the 1.5C target in view, the stocktake said, drawing from a major scientific assessment by the UN’s IPCC science advisory panel.
Achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050 – another Paris goal – will also require phasing out the burning of all fossil fuels whose emissions cannot be captured, it said.
How quickly to purge the global economy of oil, gas and coal will be hotly contested at the 196-nation two-week COP28 talks, which take place in Dubai starting in late November.
The stocktake report also says that clean power must be dramatically ramped up, according to the first UN scorecard of the world’s progress in meeting Paris Agreement climate goals.
“Scaling up renewable energy and phasing out all unabated fossil fuels are indispensable elements of just energy transitions to net zero emissions,” it said.
“Unabated” refers to the absence of any technology that removes carbon emissions, either at the source or from the atmosphere.
G20’s burden
Global greenhouse gas emissions must peak by 2025 and drop sharply thereafter if humanity is to cap global warming in line with Paris targets.
Emissions have already peaked in developed and a few developing…
