Actions to limit climate change and avert disaster are falling short: U.N. report

When government representatives of nearly every nation in the world meet in Sharm-el Sheikh, Egypt on November 6 to attend the next United Nations climate change conference, also known as COP27, they will be gathering under a cloud.

A new report from the U.N. finds that the pledges made to limit greenhouse gas emissions and avert the worst consequences of climate change are falling woefully short of their goal.

Only 24 of the 193 countries that signed on to a 2021 agreement reached at COP 26 to “revisit and strengthen” their commitments this year have done so, the report concluded.

A year ago, the world was on track for emissions to increase 13.7% from 2010 levels by 2030, according to an estimate in the 2021 U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change’s (UNFCCC’s) NDC synthesis report.

According to the UNFCCC’s NDC synthesis report released Thursday, emissions will rise by 10.6% by 2030.

With less than two weeks to go before the next round of negotiations, the world’s nations remain far off the trajectory that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has said is necessary to avert catastrophic climate change: a 50% cut in emissions by 2030.

The IPCC has found that limiting warming to 1.5° Celsius is necessary to prevent devastating effects of climate change and ushering in a series of dangerous feedback loops, such as massive rainforest dieback and glacial melting, that will result in even warmer temperatures.

“The downward trend in emissions expected by 2030 shows that nations have made some progress this year,” said Simon Stiell, executive secretary of the UNFCCC said in a statement accompanying the report.

“But the science is clear and so are our climate goals under the Paris Agreement. We are still nowhere near the scale and pace of emission reductions required to put us on track toward a 1.5°C world. To keep this goal alive, national governments need to strengthen their climate action plans now and implement them in the next eight years.”