Global commitments to limit global warming remain largely insufficient and place the world on a warming trajectory of 2.6°C over the century, the UN warned on Wednesday, recalling the need for drastic and immediate efforts.
The world is “dangerously far from the mark” and “can no longer avoid exceeding the limit of 1.5°C”, the most ambitious objective of the 2015 Paris agreement, declared Antonio Guterres, the Secretary-General of the UN, at the launch of the annual report of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) on the gap between emissions and climate objectives.
The United States undermines the objective
According to the report, even if nations honor their commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, global temperatures would be 2.6°C higher than pre-industrial levels by the end of the century. Darker projections than those of last year – warming of 2.3°C to 2.5°C – notably due to the withdrawal of the United States, the world’s second largest polluter, from the Paris agreement and the revision of historical emissions estimates.
On the basis of current policies alone, without taking into account commitments to do better, global warming could even reach 2.8°C by 2100, double its current level, while the world is already experiencing a number of extreme climatic phenomena (deadly floods, brutal heat waves, uncontrollable fires) like those which hit Europe and Switzerland this summer.
The buried 1.5°C objective
“The consequences are already devastating”, but that “does not mean that we should give up”, underlines Mr. Guterres, three weeks before the 31st UN climate conference (November 9-20) in Turkey. Greenhouse gas emissions, linked to the combustion of coal, oil and gas, remain “at record levels” in 2025. And national climate plans and current policies are “dangerously insufficient”, but “we have the necessary tools to change course and move away from the precipice”, estimates the UN official.
Among the six largest emitters, preliminary data for 2025 shows rising emissions in the United States, Indonesia and China, and falling in India, Russia and the European Union. The possibility of keeping warming below 1.5°C “has disappeared”, says the report, after “decades of insufficient climate action”, particularly on the part of the rich countries of the G20, responsible for three quarters of emissions.
“The consequences will be measured in lives lost, not just in degrees of warming”
“This is a historic failure of political leadership. The science has been clear for decades, but governments have preferred to procrastinate rather than act. The consequences will be measured in lives lost, and not just in degrees of warming,” laments Mohamed Adow, director of Power Shift Africa, which seeks to mobilize on the climate issue in Africa.
Scientists warn that every additional fraction of a degree above 1.5°C increases the frequency of extreme weather events and the likelihood of irreversible changes to the planet, from the dieback of coral reefs to the melting of permafrost.
“Accelerate significantly”
The report nevertheless envisages a more favorable scenario, in which warming would peak between 1.7°C and 1.8°C before falling back below 1.5°C by 2100. To achieve this, global emissions would have to decrease by 18% by 2030, by 45% by 2035 and by 69% by 2040, compared to 2025.
By comparison, meeting current climate commitments will only lead to a reduction of 5 to 8% by 2030 and 11 to 15% by 2035, according to the UN. “The decisive moment – the one where everything is at stake – has arrived; it is now, not later,” said Inger Andersen, executive director of UNEP, warning that “the window of opportunity is closing.”
To do this, countries will have to “amplify” the progress already made – global renewable energy capacity has grown three times faster than expected, the deployment of photovoltaic solar energy has increased sevenfold… – and “accelerate the dynamic” in a “significant way”, judges Anne Olhoff, one of the authors of the report. But blockages persist, notably on the gradual exit from fossil fuels, where “we are not seeing any progress that meets the requirements”, underlines Ms Olhoff, and on deforestation.
