Countries’ climate plans would reduce emissions by 10% by 2035, well below what science calls for

A few days before a new climate summit and despite a seven-month extension, only 64 countries submitted their updated Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to the UN.
On November 10, a new climate summit kicks off (COP30, in Belém, Brazil) and in the days leading up to it, all kinds of reports emerge on the state of the climate and the action taken to protect it. The objective with these documents is that they serve to let countries know where we are and use them to negotiate.

The report published on Monday is an analysis by the UN climate change department on the new nationally determined contributions (NDCs), i.e. the (voluntary) climate plans of the almost 200 states that signed the Paris Agreement in 2015. However, only 64 have been received in this round of update, despite the fact that the February deadline was extended to the end of September. With this new information, UN Climate Change concludes that current national targets would reduce global emissions by approximately 10% by 2035 compared to 2019. Of course: as long as what is described on paper is fully complied with. This figure, moreover, is a far cry from the 60% reduction in emissions to avoid warming of more than 1.5 ºC urged by the IPCC, the largest panel of specialists in the field. To avoid a 2ºC increase, the cut in emissions should be 35%, also far from the current trend. And despite all this, that 10% would be news to celebrate, since for the first time projections point to a decline. Insufficient, in any case. Especially considering that the few nations that have submitted their plans only account for 30% of all greenhouse gas emissions, which shows the need for joint action by all countries to mitigate climate change. For all these reasons, the report concludes that it is not possible to draw “far-reaching conclusions or inferences globally from this limited set of data”.

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