- The United Nations stated that the pledges made by countries at COP26 will not help slow global warming.
- The COP26 summit is currently being held in Glasgow.
- Countries have pledged to reduce emissions.
The United Nations said on Tuesday that a series of emission commitments surrounding the COP26 climate summit may not help to slow down global warming, calling on countries to significantly accelerate greenhouse gas emissions reductions within this decade.
In recent weeks, as the United Nations climate summit limits the temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius, countries have made a series of new and strengthened commitments—including India’s pledge to achieve carbon neutrality by 2070.
The negotiations that countries have participated in are far from reaching their goals, and national emission reduction commitments-known as Nationally Determined Contributions, or NDCs-will heat the planet to a “catastrophic” 2.7C in this century.
Read | At the COP26 meeting, 45 countries pledged to protect nature in the fight against climate change
A new assessment by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) of their new commitments found that the results are “very similar,” mainly because the most ambitious emission reduction plans are envisaged after 2030.
The report emphasized the challenges facing climate negotiations because there is a huge gap between the emissions reductions required to maintain the temperature rise at 1.5C during this decade and the continuous increase in greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere.
Alok Sharma, chairman of COP26, said this shows that “some progress has been made, but it is clearly not enough.”
“What we have always said is that we hope to be able to say credibly at this COP that we are maintaining a survival rate of 1.5, and this is what we will work on in the next few days,” he said on Tuesday.
Target
Experts say that several new commitments at COP26 may have a significant impact, including India’s net-zero commitment and an international agreement to reduce global methane emissions by 30% by 2030.
These have caused many recalculated global warming forecasts.
The United Nations Climate Change said last week that countries’ renewed nationally determined contributions—renewed every five years under the Paris Agreement—will climb 13.7% in emissions by 2030 and then drop sharply.
In order to be consistent with 1.5C, emissions must be reduced by 45% by then.
Fatih Birol, the executive director of the International Energy Agency, said last week that if all commitments are fully implemented, and if countries quickly cut emissions, heating may be limited to 1.8 degrees Celsius.
But the recent calculation results are higher.
Looking only at national plans and announcements, the Environment Agency said that by 2030, they may reduce carbon pollution by 500 million tons.
But it said that, on the whole, all current national emission reduction plans will still heat up by 2.7 degrees Celsius by 2100.
When other net-zero actions (such as carbon offsets and reforestation) are taken into account along with decarbonization efforts, the warming estimate is 2.1C.
UNEP Executive Director Inger Anderson said: “We are not where we need to be, we need to take more action.”
“At this point, when we frankly looked at the content of the extra promise, it was a big elephant giving birth to a mouse.”
Kick
The UNEP assessment was carried out on the same day as a similar analysis by the think tank Climate Action Tracker (CAT), which stated that if countries fully implement their short-term emissions targets, global warming this century may be limited to 2.4 degrees Celsius.
CAT calculations are based on the 50% probability of reaching a given temperature, while UNEP’s is more conservative, at 66%.
International climate policy coordinator Teresa Anderson (Teresa Anderson) said that the report is “the most powerful evidence so far that too many net-zero targets are not worth writing on paper.”
The latest report comes after former U.S. President Donald Trump pulled the country out of the Paris Agreement. The arrival of American political heavyweights emphasized the United States’ renewed commitment to the UN climate process.
The speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, said at the meeting that former President Barack Obama said that he understood the reasons why young people were “frustrated,” said the day after: “We are fully equipped and ready to meet Challenge and meet this moment.” Climate inaction.
Pelosi said: “This is all about children. Leave them with a healthy, safest, and easier-to-achieve world.”
