The world is on track for a ‘catastrophic’ 3.1°C of global warming by the end of this century, the UN has warned.
In its annual report on the emission cuts needed to limit global warming to 1.5°C, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said the goal would ‘soon be dead’ without a global mobilisation on a scale and pace never seen before.
It warned the world was on track for temperature rises of 2.6°C to 3.1°C, depending on how much of the currently-promised climate action is delivered.
The warning comes ahead of this year’s UN Cop29 talks in Baku, in fossil-fuel-rich Azerbaijan.
There, nations will face calls to agree bolder action to scale up finance for developing countries to tackle climate change, and to close the emissions gap.
Responding to the report, UN secretary general, Antonio Guterres, said the world was ‘teetering on a planetary tightrope’.
‘Either leaders bridge the emissions gap, or we plunge headlong into climate disaster – with the poorest and most vulnerable suffering the most,’ he said.
The world is on track for a ‘catastrophic’ 3.1°C of global warming by the end of this century, the UN has warned (stock image)
The UN warned the world was currently on track for temperature rises of 2.6°C to 3.1°C, depending on how much of the currently-promised climate action is delivered
At the Paris climate talks back in 2015, countries agreed to limit temperature rises to ‘well below’ 2°C and pursue efforts to curb them to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.
Scientists have warned that there is no safe amount of climate change.
However, 1.5°C has come to be seen as a threshold beyond which the worst impacts of climate change-driven heatwaves, droughts, floods, collapse of natural systems and rising sea levels will be felt.
Nations have set out country-level action plans, known as nationally determined contributions (NDCs), for meeting the Paris targets, through cutting emissions from activities such as burning fossil fuels and creating or restoring habitats such as forests to capture carbon, up to 2030.
But, as countries prepare to submit the next set of plans for action up to 2035 in the next few months, UNEP is warning the goal of preventing dangerous warming is slipping out of reach.
The report said global greenhouse gases are still rising, and were up 1.3 per cent in 2023 on 2022 levels – a faster increase than the average over the past decade – with the G20 group of leading economies accounting for more than three quarters (77 per cent) of emissions.
The world is facing long term global warming of 3.1°C on current policies, and even if countries delivered on their climate plans up to 2030, it would lead to temperature rises of 2.6°C-2.8°C, the report said.
But countries are off-track, even for those plans.
Nations must collectively commit to cut 42 per cent off annual greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and 57 per cent by 2035 in the next round of NDCs to achieve the 1.5°C goal, UNEP warned. It is technically feasible to deliver such a cut, by tripling renewable energy capacity by 2030, ramping up energy efficiency improvements, shifting away from fossil fuel use and protecting and restoring natural habitats such as forests and mangroves
