The United Nations’ (UN) annual Emissions Gap report, released on Thursday, the 24th of October, warns that current climate policies, and if governments do not take more action to reduce planet-warming emissions, global warming could reach +3.1 degrees Celsius by 2100, more than double the limit set nearly a decade ago, report Reuters and Politico.
Governments signed the Paris Agreement in 2015 and set a limit of +1.5C of warming to avoid a dangerous range of consequences.
The severity and frequency of dangerous heat waves, devastating storms and other disasters are increasing with every fraction of global warming. Scientists say that reaching +3C would send the world could pass several points of no return that would drastically alter the planet’s climate and raise sea levels, for example due to melting glaciers.
Global greenhouse gas emissions increased by 1.3% between 2022 and 2023, reaching a new high of 57.1 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, the report said.
The world has now warmed by about +1.3C.
The report found that under the current pledge, temperatures will still rise by +2.6 to +2.8 degrees by 2100, which is consistent with the findings of the last three years.
However, even the best-case scenario of +2.6 degrees means “catastrophic” warming with “devastating impacts on people, the planet and the economy”, the UN warns.
The report says countries must collectively commit to reducing annual greenhouse gas emissions by 42% by 2030 and 57% by 2035 to have any hope of avoiding warming above +1.5C, currently considered an unachievable target.
Anne Olhoff, the UN report’s chief scientific editor, pointed out that the G20 countries have made little progress towards the 2030 climate targets.
While all G20 countries accounted for 77% of global emissions last year, the top six polluters were responsible for more than 60% of emissions, with the report’s authors not naming and shameing, but referring to China (30%), the US (11%), India (8%), the European Union (EU) (6%), Russia (5%) and Brazil (2%).
The G20’s climate performance varies widely: China’s emissions rose by 5.2% to 11 tonnes per capita in 2023, while EU emissions fell by 7.5% to 7.3 tonnes per capita. US emissions fell by 1.4%, but per capita American emissions were 18 tonnes – second only to Russia at 19 tonnes. India’s emissions increased by 6% but remained low at 2.9 tonnes per capita.
And while the EU, for example, is estimated to be on track to meet its climate targets, many other G20 countries are not.
Next month, countries will gather at the annual UN climate summit (COP29) in Azerbaijan to build on last year’s agreement to move away from fossil fuels.
The talks in Baku will help prepare each country’s updated emissions reduction strategy, known as its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), which is due in February 2025.
UN Environment Executive Director Inger Andersen called on countries to use the Baku talks to strengthen their NDC efforts. “Every fraction of a degree counts,” she said.
The UN is urging leaders to keep their climate pledges, pointing out that while current projections exceed the +1.5C limit, if all the pledges countries have made in recent years, on top of the official NDCs, are implemented, warming could stay below +1.9C by the end of the century. This is the only scenario in which temperatures would plateau around 2100.