UN SOUNDS THE ALARM AFTER ANALYZING NEARLY 200 GOVERNMENT PLANS: ‘THE CHASM BETWEEN NEED AND ACTION IS MORE MENACING THAN EVER’
“THE UN IS ACTING MORE AND MORE LIKE THE UNHINGED NATIONS.” SH
UN SOUNDS THE ALARM AFTER ANALYZING NEARLY 200 GOVERNMENT PLANS: ‘THE CHASM BETWEEN NEED AND ACTION IS MORE MENACING THAN EVER’
The report revealed that, collectively, we are far off track.
By Tina DeinesJanuary 5, 2024
Photo Credit: iStock
The world is falling far behind on an important target to curb planet-warming pollution, putting us at risk of potentially irreversible impacts, according to a United Nations (U.N.) report.
What happened?
In November 2023, the United Nations released a report that analyzed nearly 200 Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), which are non-binding national plans for climate mitigation.
Under the current NDCs, planet-heating pollution would fall just 2% below 2019 levels by 2030 — far short of the 43% reduction that would, per the U.N., be needed to stay within the targets of the 2015 Paris Agreement, Reuters reports. The agreement aimed to hold the global temperature increase to “well below 2°C [3.6 degrees Fahrenheit] above pre-industrial levels and pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5°C [2.7 degrees Fahrenheit] above pre-industrial levels.”
“Global ambition stagnated over the past year, and national climate plans are strikingly misaligned with the science,” U.N. secretary-general António Guterres said, per Reuters. “The chasm between need and action is more menacing than ever.”
Why is the report concerning?
Scientists agree that the world’s average temperature should not exceed that of preindustrial times by more than 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit to prevent worsening and potentially irreversible effects of a rapidly overheating planet, and this report revealed that collectively, we are far off track.
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) issued another report in May 2023 that projected a significant likelihood that the world would exceed the 1.5-degree threshold in the next four years “driven by human-induced climate change, combined with a warming El Niño,” as MIT News reported.
JOIN OUR NEWSLETTERGood news, green hacks, and the latest cool clean tech — straight to your inbox every week!