It’s report card season for climate change.
Each year, the United Nations takes stock of whether countries are on track to cut carbon emissions and limit global warming.
The grade this year: needs more improvement than ever.
Global greenhouse gas emissions rose to a new record in 2023, and if countries do not change course, the world will see warming of more than 5.5 degrees Fahrenheit (3.1 degrees Celsius) by the end of the century.
That would blow past the targets set in the 2015 Paris climate agreement: Countries have agreed to try to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius to avoid the most catastrophic impacts of climate change.
Those are the findings of a new report from the United Nations Environment Programme, which tracks how rapidly countries are cutting heat-trapping emissions from burning fossil fuels.
“The findings of this report are fairly similar to last year: Another year passed without action means we’re worse off,” says Anne Olhoff, chief scientific editor of the report.
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Scientific research shows that limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius is a crucial benchmark for avoiding some of the most severe impacts of climate change. Beyond that level, heat waves and storms become much more destructive. Melting polar ice would cause sea levels to rise, flooding coastal cities. Hotter ocean temperatures would kill off the majority of the world’s coral reefs. Since the planet doesn’t heat up evenly, the U.S. would see even more warming than the global average.
To reach the 1.5 degree Celsius goal, emissions would need to drop rapidly by the end of this decade, falling 42% from 2019 levels, according to the report.
If countries stay on their current path, global emissions could remain virtually unchanged by 2030.
The annual ”emissions gap” report comes just weeks ahead of global climate talks at the COP29 summit in Baku, Azerbaijan. There, countries will discuss global efforts to tackle climate change and transition away from fossil fuels. The summit will set the stage for next year’s negotiations, when countries are expected to announce more ambitious goals for reducing their climate emissions going forward.
Most countries are not on track to meet their current pledges to cut emissions. Even if countries do meet those pledges, emissions would only fall 10% by 2030. That underscores how vital it is for countries to make larger pledges next year, the report says.
"We are teetering on a planetary tightrope," says UN Secretary-General António Guterres. "Either leaders bridge the emissions gap or we plunge headlong into climate disaster with the poorest and most vulnerable suffering the most."
The world has made progress in building more renewable energy capacity. Solar and wind power is now often cheaper than burning fossil fuels like coal and natural gas, and renewable energy generation is reaching historic levels. But global emissions still rose last year because of a growing demand for energy from many sectors of the economy, from aviation to data centers to air conditioning. While emissions are beginning to fall in the European Union and the U.S., they’re rising in China, India and the Russian Federation.
Still technically possible to limit warming to 1.5 degrees
While it gets more difficult to reach the 1.5 degree Celsius goal with every year that passes, it is still technically possible, the report notes.
To keep the goal alive, close to 60% of the world’s electricity would need to come from renewable sources by 2030, the report found, more than quadrupling the current amount. Still, the report points out that a handful of countries have shown it’s possible to adopt renewables at an even faster rate, including Denmark, Lithuania and Uruguay.
Reducing deforestation and restoring land could also help reduce emissions, since vegetation helps store carbon dioxide.
Many of the strategies to rapidly cut emissions are cost-effective, the report found, especially given the sizable economic impact of increasingly worse disasters fueled by climate change.
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