PARIS: The United Nations estimated on Tuesday that current national carbon-cutting pledges would deliver a far-from-sufficient 10% emissions reduction by 2035.
UN Climate Change provided this emissions calculation alongside its formal assessment of national 2035 pledges just days before tense COP30 climate talks begin in Brazil.
The extra calculation incorporated elements from major polluters including China and the European Union, which have not submitted full official updated pledges.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said last week that slow national action made it inevitable that efforts to limit temperature rise to 1.5C would fail in the short term.
UN climate chief Simon Stiell stated the estimated 10% emissions cut suggested humanity is bending the emissions curve downwards for the first time, though not nearly fast enough.
The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says emissions must fall 60% by 2035 from 2019 levels for a good chance of limiting warming to 1.5C.
Stiell emphasised that temperatures absolutely can and must be brought back down to 1.5C as quickly as possible after any temporary overshoot.
The two-week COP30 climate negotiations starting November 10 in the Amazon face the task of galvanising momentum amid a hostile United States and geopolitical tensions.
The 2015 Paris Agreement aimed to limit global warming to well below 2C above pre-industrial levels, and to 1.5C if possible.
With average warming already around 1.4C today, many scientists believe the 1.5C threshold will likely be breached before the end of this decade.
Experts stress that each fraction of a degree of temperature increase avoided is crucial to limit the danger.
If temperatures overshoot 1.5C, humanity would likely need to use carbon removal technologies not yet operational at scale to pull warming back down.
Under the Paris Agreement, each country is supposed to provide increasingly ambitious plans known as Nationally Determined Contributions every five years.
The UN said just 64 of the nearly 200 parties to the Paris Agreement had submitted their NDCs by the end of September cut-off date for the official annual report.
Stiell stated the official document provides quite a limited picture, compelling the UN to attempt a more general calculation.
This wider picture, though still incomplete, shows global emissions falling by around 10% by 2035 according to his statement.
The estimate included the US submission made before Donald Trump’s return as president in January.
Trump has since announced he is pulling the United States out of the Paris deal for a second time and has moved to curb scientific climate study.
The estimate also incorporated China’s pledge to reduce emissions by 7-10% by 2035, its first absolute national target.
The European Union’s statement of intent to cut emissions between 66.25% and 72.5% by 2035 compared to 1990 levels was also taken into account.
Stiell concluded that we are still in the race, but to ensure a livable planet we must urgently pick up the pace at COP30 and every year thereafter. – AFP
