Climate crisis: global emissions will grow by 16% until 2030 and lead to a warming of 2.7 degrees

Humanity has not yet managed to correct the collision course that leads to catastrophic warming. The Paris Agreement, of 2015, established that the safety limit within the current climate crisis was to achieve that the increase in the global average temperature remained between 1.5 and two degrees with respect to pre-industrial levels. For this, it is necessary that from the middle of this century the greenhouse gases that humans emit and that accumulate in the atmosphere overheating the planet are radically reduced until they are almost totally eliminated. But that’s not the trajectory. As reported on Friday by the UN climate change area, global emissions during this decade will continue to grow: in 2030 they will have increased by about 16.3% compared to 2010 levels (5% if 2019 is taken as a reference). Scientific studies suggest that this course leads to an increase in temperature at the end of the century of about 2.7 degrees, far from the safety limit to which all countries committed when they signed the Paris Agreement six years ago.

All the states that join that pact – there are now 190 countries, practically all the nations of the planet – must present plans to cut their emissions to apply during this decade. When the Paris Agreement was closed in 2015, it was already known that these plans were not enough and that is why they needed to be revised upwards. As of this summer, 112 countries had done so, the climate change area has reported. These 112 countries — including all members of the European Union and the United States — account for about 49 per cent of global emissions, and while their new plans are an improvement, they do not serve to correct the global trajectory towards those 2.7 degrees.

To get the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees, scientists estimate that global emissions of carbon dioxide (the main greenhouse gas) should fall by 45% in 2030 compared to 2010. To stay at a warming of two degrees, the reduction should be 25% by 2030. “The 16% increase is a big cause for concern. It contrasts sharply with science’s calls for a rapid, sustained and large-scale reduction in emissions to avoid the most serious climate consequences,” Patricia Espinosa, executive secretary of UN Climate Change, said friday during a telematic press conference.

Espinosa has warned of the little time left to change course and has acknowledged that the existing window of opportunity to limit warming to 1.5 degrees is “very small”. “But it’s still possible,” he added.

Not all at the same speed

Espinosa has also lamented that “some political announcements” have not materialized in the plans to cut emissions that must be presented to the UN. And, after being questioned by journalists about the countries that have not complied, she recalled that China announced last year that it was going to tighten its emissions cut plan somewhat, something it has not done yet. Espinosa also recalled that Japan and South Korea have not materialized their new climate promises.

Not all countries are acting the same way now. The European Union, the United Kingdom, Canada or the United States are among the nations that have clearly increased their cutting plans and their objectives for 2030. If only the plans of the 112 states that have reinforced their commitments already to the UN are taken into account, emissions would fall by 12% in 2030.

Coinciding with the presentation of this report, the World Resources Institute has released an analysis of the cutting plans of the G-20, the most powerful economies on the planet and those that expel 75% of the world’s gases. The analysts of this organization remember that Japan, South Africa, South Korea and China have not presented their new plans despite the fact that they have announced them. Nor have India, Saudi Arabia and Turkey updated their targets. Others, such as Australia and Indonesia, have put forward plans with the same goals as before. And other states — such as Russia, Brazil or Mexico — have developed programs that would “allow for higher emissions than had been committed” until now.

Insufficient funding

Mitigating climate change through emissions cuts is one of the fundamental legs of the Paris Agreement. But in the international climate negotiation there is another key aspect: the aid that the most developed countries must transfer to the poorest so that they face the consequences of warming and can also combat it. Developed countries were to “mobilize” $100 billion annually starting in 2020. But the UN recalled on Friday that this commitment “has not been fulfilled.”

Espinosa recalled that financial support to developing countries, which have contributed much less to global warming that hits them hardest, is essential for them to act “in the most ambitious way possible.” That is, so that they can also increase their commitments to cut emissions.

The OECD (the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development), the body in which the most advanced countries are represented, has also presented its report on climate finance on Friday. The study refers to the closed data of 2019, when the “climate finance provided and mobilized” by developed countries reached 79.6 billion dollars, 2% more than in 2018. The main drawback that is usually put to the balance sheet made by the OECD is that these amounts include both direct subsidies and credits and repayable aid.

In addition to urging developed countries to increase financing, Espinosa on Friday asked all countries that have not yet done so to present their new cutting plans. He also recalled that any country can further tighten its objectives at any time. Espinosa has indicated that the climate summit in Glasgow (United Kingdom), which is being held in six weeks, may be a good time for countries to show more ambition.

Source: The Country