The impossible mission of reducing emissions: we will end the century with 2.5ºC more

BarcelonaThe UN has analyzed all the political commitments it has received from governments before the start of the climate summit next week in Brazil, COP30With the new climate plans officially presented, the world is heading towards global warming of between 2.3°C and 2.5°C, still above the Paris Agreement target, but 0.1°C below what was projected last year with the commitments then on the table. Climate diplomacy is progressing, but very slowly.

The report published this Tuesday by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) has calculated the global warming resulting from the climate plans submitted to the UN so far. By 2025, the States were required to submit new plansThese are called NDCs (Nationally Determined Contributions, in UN climate terminology), with emissions reduction targets for 2035. But at the time UNEP made the calculation, only 60 countries had done so, and neither China nor the European Union were among them.

But just this Monday, the day before the report was published, the Chinese government finally formalized its new NDC and submitted a new target to the UN for 2035. Beijing expects to reach peak emissions in 2030 and begin reducing them from that year onward, with the 2035 commitment. Considering that it is still the world's largest emitter of CO₂, this is a significant commitment. However, its impact is not accounted for in the UNEP report.

In contrast, the European Union has been unable to get all its members to agree on a figure for that date, nor for 2040. For that other date, the Commission proposed a 90% emissions cut, which also could not be agreed upon. This Tuesday, European governments were meeting to try to reach an agreement that would allow them to avoid arriving in Brazil with their work unfinished.

US withdrawal

With the 60 NDCs on the table at the end of September, the UN estimates that global CO₂ emissions will be reduced by 15% by 2035 compared to 2019 levels, although it acknowledges that the United States' withdrawal from the Paris Agreement will further alter these figures, which are still based on data. This reduction by 2035 may seem like a feat, especially considering that emissions have not yet stopped rising (they only increased during the pandemic year and have since surged again), but in reality, it is insufficient, since global emissions would need to be reduced by 35% by 2035. of the 2°C of global warming, or 55% to avoid exceeding 1.5°C.

With the political commitments in place last year, it was predicted that the global temperature would rise between 2.6°C and 2.8°C this century. Now that forecast has been reduced somewhat. However, the report predicts that the United States' withdrawal from the Paris Agreement will result in at least 0.1°C more warming. And the study also warns that the 1.5°C global warming threshold "will be exceeded in the next decade"At least temporarily," and this "will be difficult to reverse and will require faster and deeper reductions."

"While national climate plans have made some progress, it is far from rapid, and that is why we still need an unprecedented project that has not been published or disseminated before. But it is still possible; there are proven solutions. From the rapid growth of cheap renewable energy to tackling methane emissions, we know what to do. Now is the time for countries to go all in and invest in their future with ambitious climate action," warned Inger Andersen, Executive Director of UNEP.