Global climate plans do not even get us closer to our goal
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The current climate change action plans are not so much slow as going in the opposite direction than they should be. In line with the current commitments of world countries, greenhouse gas emissions will increase in the next decade, while they should drop drastically – and there is no certainty that even these plans will be implemented.
UN Climate Change published a synthesis of climate action plans as communicated in countries' Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). In line with the Paris Agreement, countries define their own contribution to the global goal of keeping warming below 2 degrees of Celsius, aiming at 1.5 degrees. These national plans should be updated every five years and it is this year that the deadline for their first update is due. However, a large proportion of countries have yet to do so. Updated plans are insufficient, and taking into account those not yet updated, it turns out that the world is not even close to the path to stop the climate crisis, according to a UN report.
For us to have a good chance of stopping global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius, we need a 45 percent reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. For the 2 degrees Celsius threshold, it is necessary to reduce emissions by 25 percent.
The new NDCs have so far presented 113 countries, including the entire European Union, and they cover almost half of global greenhouse gas emissions. Taking only this group of countries with the new targets into account, emissions would fall by 13 percent by the end of the decade (if these plans are implemented). This is still far too little to achieve the even higher 2 degrees Celsius target. It is even worse when we include the other countries that have not updated their NDCs. The assessment of all plans shows that their implementation would mean not a decrease, but an increase in emissions by 16 percent by the end of 2030.
