UN countries' national pledges to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are not enough to limit global warming, the UN said on Monday.
The UN Climate Convention's annual assessment shows that countries' nationally determined contributions will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2.6 percent from 2019 to 2030. That figure is up from two percent. in 2023. But that is not enough, it says.
If the Paris Agreement's goal of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees is to be met, greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced by 43 percent, say researchers.
The Secretary-General of the Climate Convention, Simon Stiell, is therefore appealing that countries must deliver new and more ambitious climate targets by a deadline of February 2025.
- The current climate plans are not at all enough in relation to what is needed to prevent global warming from paralyzing every economy and destroying billions of lives worldwide, he says.
The Earth has been warmer than now
Another report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), which is part of the UN, shows that CO2 is accumulating in the atmosphere faster than ever before in human history.
It shows that its concentration has increased by 11.4 percent within 20 years, and the level is now 51 percent higher compared to the pre-industrial level, which the WMO has set at the year 1750.
The Earth's CO2 level has not reached the same heights since three to five million years ago, when the temperature was also two to three degrees warmer and the sea level was 10-20 meters higher. And that should make decision-makers' alarm bells ring, says WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo.
- Every fraction of a temperature increase has a real impact on our lives and our planet, says the report.
According to the report, the development of CO2 is primarily driven by the burning of fossil fuels and the production of cement. The UN will hold a climate summit, COP29, in November in the capital Baku, Azerbaijan.
/ritzau/Reuters
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