‘Time is running out’:
Researchers warn climate
progress has stalled as only
one country doing enough
to meet 1.5C target
Only one country is currently doing enough to meet the world’s aspiration of limiting global heating to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, researchers have warned.
The rest of the planet is making “sobering” progress towards meeting the target agreed by countries under the Paris Agreement, according to new analysis released just weeks before the Cop26 climate summit is due to take place in Glasgow.
The assessment of 37 countries, from the independent research group Climate Action Tracker, says that progress towards keeping hopes of the 1.5C target alive have stalled since May, with Gambia being the only country currently taking sufficient action.
It adds that the UK is the only developed country to have climate plans that are in line with efforts to limit warming to 1.5C. However, it does not yet have the policies in place to make its ambitious targets a reality, the scientists said.
“It’s sobering that in the last few months we’ve seen little movement,” Professor Niklas Hohne, analysis author and founding partner of the NewClimate Institute in Germany, told The Independent.
“The gap between where we want to be and where we are is huge. When considering all of the pledges and targets that are currently on the table, we will barely stabilise greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 – while we would have to halve global emissions by 2030 to be in line with the Paris Agreement.”
Gambia is rated highly because it currently accounts for a very small share of global greenhouse gas emissions and yet has still pledged to slash its climate pollution, said Prof Hohne.
“Gambia is not responsible a lot for climate change, but it has still pledged to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions if there is international finance available,” he said.
A flurry of new commitments to slash these emissions were put forward during key climate summits held in the first half of 2021, the researchers said. However, progress has now slowed.
“We’ve moved very little in the last four months,” said Prof Höhne.
The findings come shortly after a landmark report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which said that the climate crisis is already affecting weather and extremes in every region of the globe – and that urgent action is required to keep hopes of limiting global heating to 1.5C alive.
The new analysis says that three-quarters of all countries are currently making insufficient progress towards meeting the 1.5C target.
All countries were expected to come forward with new domestic climate plans, known as nationally determined contributions (NDCs), this year ahead of Cop26.
However, the analysis finds that a group of countries, which together account for around half of global emissions, have not yet submitted any new plans for how they will cut their emissions. This group includes the world’s top emitter China, as well as India, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.
In addition, many of the countries that did come forward with new climate plans failed to meaningfully increase their ambition, the analysis said. Such countries include Australia, Mexico, Brazil, Singapore, Russia, Indonesia, New Zealand, Switzerland and Vietnam.
“Those countries have to go back and think about whether that was the right decision,” said Prof Höhne. “We are just months away from Cop26 and time is running out.”
Some countries are “almost” doing enough to be in line with keep global temperatures to 1.5C, he added. These countries include Costa Rica, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Morocco and Nepal.
Dr Bill Hare, analysis author and CEO of the global research centre Climate Analytics, added that it would be “impossible” to meet climate goals without more urgent action.
“The IPCC has given the world a ‘code red’ warning on the dangers of climate change reinforcing the urgent need for the world to halve emissions by 2030,” he said.
“An increasing number of people around the world are suffering from ever more severe and frequent impacts of climate change, yet government action continues to lag behind what is needed. While many governments have committed to net zero, without near-term action achieving net zero is virtually impossible.”
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Governments falling woefully short of Paris climate pledges, study finds
Oliver Milman in New York
Wed, 15 September 2021
Every one of the world’s leading economies, including all the countries that make up the G20, is failing to meet commitments made in the landmark Paris agreement in order to stave off climate catastrophe, a damning new analysis has found.
Less than two months before crucial United Nations climate talks take place in Scotland, none of the largest greenhouse gas emitting countries have made sufficient plans to lower pollution to meet what they agreed to in the 2015 Paris climate accord.
This means the world is barreling towards calamitous climate impacts.
Under the Paris deal, nations vowed to prevent the world’s average temperature rising 1.5C above pre-industrial times in order to avoid disastrous heatwaves, flooding, storms, drought and other consequences that are already starting to unfold. But the new analysis, by Climate Action Tracker, finds almost every country is falling woefully short of that commitment.
Climate pledges made by Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia are “critically insufficient”, the analysis found, while Australia, Brazil, Canada, China and India are among those deemed “highly insufficient”.
The US, the European Union bloc, Germany and Japan are ranked as “insufficient”, while the UK, the host of the upcoming climate summit, is “almost sufficient”.
Of the 36 countries, plus the EU, ranked by the Climate Action Tracker only the Gambia has made commitments in line with the 1.5C Paris goal. Combined, these countries make up 80% of global emissions.
Governments are supposed to periodically improve their emissions reduction targets in order to fulfil the promises made in Paris but progress has “stalled” this year, the researchers said.
There was “good momentum” in May after a climate summit held at the White House by the US president, Joe Biden, according to Niklas Höhne, a researcher at NewClimate Institute, a partner organization in the Climate Action Tracker analysis.
“But since then, there has been little to no improvement – nothing is moving,” he said. “Governments have now closed the gap by up to 15%, a minimal improvement since May.
“Anyone would think they have all the time in the world, when in fact the opposite is the case,” he added.
This intransigence comes despite the looming climate talks and increasing signs of the climate crisis manifesting itself in catastrophic weather events, including massive floods in Germany and China, severe wildfires in the US and dangerous heatwaves sweeping several countries.
A survey of 16,000 people across North America, Europe and Asia on Tuesday by Pew found that 72% were worried that climate change will harm them personally at some point.
In August, a landmark report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world’s leading authority on climate science, found that the burning of fossil fuels is changing the Earth’s climate in “unprecedented” ways and that rapid cuts in greenhouse gases are needed to avert climate breakdown.
António Guterres, the UN secretary general, said the report should act as “a code red for humanity”.
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But the Climate Action Tracker found a lack of urgency by all of the major emitters, such as China, India and the US, in responding to this threat.
Even countries with strong climate targets are not on track to meet them, while international finance for poorer countries to help cope with the climate crisis is falling short. If current practices continue, the world is on track for nearly 3C in warming.
The analysis said of “particular concern” are the governments of Australia, Brazil, Indonesia and Russia, all of which have failed to raise the ambition of their emissions cuts at all since 2015.
Coal, the most polluting fossil fuel, is still being developed on a large scale by India and China, the report found, while gas infrastructure is being expanded by Australia and the EU.
“An increasing number of people around the world are suffering from ever more severe and frequent impacts of climate change, yet government action continues to lag behind what is needed,” said Bill Hare, chief executive of Climate Analytics, another partner in the new study.
“While many governments have committed to net zero, without near-term action achieving net zero is virtually impossible.”
The analysis provides a sobering reality check ahead of the UN climate talks, which were pushed back from last year due to the Covid-19 pandemic. A coalition of 1,000 environment groups have called for the talks to be postponed again because delegates from the poorest countries still lack access to coronavirus vaccines.
This call has been rejected by the British government as well as John Kerry, the US climate envoy, who said on Monday that a further delay would be a “huge, huge mistake”.
But Kerry risks entering the talks with no major climate victory to brandish, with emissions reduction provisions as part of a huge $3.5tn piece of Biden’s legislative agenda still a matter of disagreement even among Democrats in the US Congress.
Environmentalists have also attacked the Biden administration for recently leasing out vast areas of the US west and the Gulf of Mexico for oil and gas drilling.
The leases “will make it even harder for America to meet its climate goals”, said Jennifer Rokala, executive director for the Center for Western Priorities conservation group.
“Vision is nothing without action. Unfortunately, the Biden administration’s actions to increase drilling on public lands are at odds with the president’s vision,” she added.
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