New York, October 26 – Plans submitted by countries to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions, which contribute to earth warming, have failed their targets and may lead earth’s temperatures to rise to at least 2.5 degrees Celsius, a level deemed catastrophic, a new report by U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) said.
The 2015 Paris Agreement signed by most countries had called for limiting global temperatures to 1.5 degrees by the end of the century and a number of countries had announced their National Determined Contributions (NDCs) to reach that target by 2030. But the plans submitted by those countries were not ambitious enough, the report said. The NDCs are voluntary efforts by countries to lower greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate climate change.
Despite the negative assessment on efforts to cut down gas emissions, there have been an improvement over last year’s report, a climate official said.
“The downward trend in emissions expected by 2030 shows that nations have made some progress this year,” said Simon Stiell, Executive Secretary of U.N. Climate Change as reported by UN News.
“But the science is clear and so are our climate goals under the Paris Agreement. We are still nowhere near the scale and pace of emission reductions required to put us on track toward a 1.5 degrees Celsius world,” Stiell said. He urged governments to strengthen their climate action plans now and implement them in the next eight years.
At the 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland, in 2021, governments agreed to act on their climate plans, but only 24 out of 193 countries submitted updated plans to the U.N., Stiell said was a disappointment,
“Government decisions and actions must reflect the level of urgency, the gravity of the threats we are facing, and the shortness of the time we have remaining to avoid the devastating consequences of runaway climate change,” he said.
Governments to hold COP27 in Egypt November 6-18
“COP27 is the moment where global leaders can regain momentum on climate change, make the necessary pivot from negotiations to implementation and get moving on the massive transformation that must take place throughout all sectors of society to address the climate emergency,” Stiell said.
Stiell urged governments to show at the coming conference how they will put the Paris Agreement to work through legislation, policies and programs, as well as how they will cooperate and provide support for implementation, UN News reported. Stiell urged progress to be made in four priority areas: mitigation, adaptation, loss and damage, and finance.
Close to 200 countries and hundreds of climate and environment experts will take part in the 27th Conference of the Parties – COP27 – to take action against climate change. The summit in the Egyptian city of Sharm El-Sheikh from November 6 to 18 will take place in a year that has seen the most severe climate events.
One third of Pakistan was flooded, affecting 33 million lives and over 15 million people could be pushed into poverty. Hurricanes caused massive destructions in the United States, the Philippines and Caribbean islands while European countries were hit by the hottest summer in 500 years.
The summit brings all countries that signed the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992. The convention commits those countries to take common actions to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations which contribute to warming of the earth.
Other actions fighting climate change include phasing down coal-fired power stations, reduce methane emissions and reverse deforestation and land degradation. Industrialized countries are urged to provide $100 billion a year to help developing countries cope with climate change.
(By J.Tuyet Nguyen)
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