Expert consortium warns efforts to limit global warming insufficient

Promises made by governments across the globe to limit their national greenhouse gas emissions in advance of December’s UN Climate Summit in Paris, where a binding post-2020 international climate treaty is to be struck, are insufficient to limit warming to the 2˚C threshold.

That’s the conclusion of a study by consortium Climate Action Tracker, which comes in the run-up to the UN climate talks in Paris in December.

In the lead-up to the summit, 29 governments have released their “Intended Nationally Determined Contributions” (INDCs), the vast majority of which are too weak to limit global warming to scientifically advisable levels.

According to Climate Action Tracker, the current plans address about 65% of global emissions.

The group analyzed 15 of the 29 contribution promises and rated seven as “inadequate”(Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea and Russia) and six “medium” (China, the EU, Mexico, Norway, Switzerland and the U.S.).

Only two of the plans — from Ethiopia and Morocco — were considered “sufficient”.

According to Bill Hare, of Climate Analytics, the commitments “need to be considerably strengthened for the period 2020-2025”.

“It is clear that if the Paris meeting locks in present climate commitments for 2030, holding warming below 2˚C could essentially become infeasible, and 1.5˚C beyond reach,” he said.

Scientists say governments must limit warming to within 2˚C of pre-industrial temperatures if we want to avoid catastrophic climate change.

“One would have expected all the new government climate targets combined to put the world on a lower emissions pathway, but they haven’t,” Louise Jeffery from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research said.

“One contributing factor is the fact that Russia, Canada, and New Zealand’s INDCs are inconsistent with their stated long term (2050) goals.”

Climate Action Tracker found many countries, Canada included, don’t have the policies in place to actually implement the emissions reductions necessary to meeting their own INDCs.

China and the EU are the exception in this case with only minimal policy adjustments needed to meet their contribution targets.

“With current policies being insufficient to limit emissions even to the INDC levels by 2025, it is clear that ramping up greater policy action needs to be encouraged as part of the Paris Agreement,” professor Kornelis Blok with Ecofys said.

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