New York, Oct 25: The world is still headed for catastrophic levels of global warming, even after a slew of new national climate pledges, according to a new UN report.
If countries don’t set stronger targets for emissions reductions in the short term, the world will be on track to warm 2.7°C by 2100, according to the study released on Monday ahead of a climate summit in Glasgow that’s meant to take stock of national pledges. The temperature increase will far exceed the goal of keeping warming below 2°C and preferably 1.5°C laid out in the Paris Agreement.
Under the UN framework, all signatories have to set out what they are doing to reduce emissions by 2030. The NDC Synthesis Report sums up those reductions and compares the result against the path the world should be on to meet the Paris temperature goals. The Monday projection was unchanged from the UN’s last update in September.
In a separate analysis, the International Energy Agency earlier looked at pledges going out to 2060. It concluded that delivering on those would put the Earth on track to warm 2.1°C by 2100. That calculation assumes that countries reduce emissions in the short term on their way to longer term ambitions.
The NDC Synthesis Report shows the gap that needs to be bridged as more than 120 leaders arrive in Glasgow next week for the COP26 climate, where they will try to hammer out a deal that would put the world back on track.
