Kuwait Times

Shortfall in climate action is ‘catastroph­ic’: UN

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PARIS: There is a “catastroph­ic” gap between national pledges to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the actions needed to cap global warming below two degrees Celsius, the UN’s environmen­t chief warned yesterday, days ahead of global climate talks in Bonn. Even if fulfilled, these pledgesins­cribed along with the 2 C target in the 2015 Paris climate pact-would see the world heat up 3 C (5.6 F), unleashing deadly heatwaves, superstorm­s and rising seas, UN Environmen­t said in its annual Emissions Gap report, the bleakest ever.

Record-setting extreme weather in 2017 — including monsoon flooding, raging fires and deadly hurricanes-likely bears the fingerprin­t of global warming, it noted. “One year after the Paris Agreement entered into force, we still find ourselves in a situation where we are not doing nearly enough to save hundreds of millions of people from a miserable future,” said Eric Solheim, head of the UN agency. “Government­s, the private sector and civil society must bridge this catastroph­ic climate gap.” Compiled by more than 200 climate scientists and experts, the annual, 100page analysis tracks progress toward the Paris goal of checking the rise in global temperatur­es at “well below” 2 C.

With many poor nations already feeling the sting of a planet out of kilter with only one degree of warming, the treaty also vowed to explore the feasibilit­y of holding the line at 1.5 C. Current commitment­s for slashing pollution take us only a third of the way toward the 2 C target, and would eat up 80 percent of humanity’s “carbon budget”-the amount of CO2 we can spew into the atmosphere without crossing that threshold-by 2030, the report said. It doesn’t help that the United States, the world’s second largest emitter, has abandoned its greenhouse gas goals under Donald Trump.

Momentum is clearly faltering

Sense of emergency “Momentum is clearly faltering,” said Edgar GutierrezE­speleta, Costa Rica’s environmen­t minister and president of the current UN Environmen­t Assembly. “We face a stark choice: up our ambition, or suffer the consequenc­es.” If the gap is not closed by 2030, the report said, “it is extremely unlikely that the goal of holding global warming to well below 2 C can still be reached.” To stay on the 2 C track, humanity must cut its emissions to about 42 billion tons of CO2 or its equivalent by 2030 from last year’s 52 billion tons. But even with carbon cutting pledges from more than 190 nations, carbon pollution in 2030 is set to rise to 53 billion toes. Without them, emissions shoot up to 60 billion tons.

“The report is a good counter-weight to some of the optimism out there about global CO2 emissions more-or-less stalling for the last two years,” said contributi­ng author Oliver Geden, a researcher at the German Institute for Internatio­nal and Security Affairs. “It highlights the sense of emergency.” Under the UN climate talks, countries will not revisit their pledges until 2020 — “the last opportunit­y to close the 2030 emissions gap,” the report said. But ramping up of national commitment­s, experts agree, will not be enough, and the UN report highlights other needed actions.

On the edge One is the rapid phase out of coal. If all the coal-fired power plants in the world operates to the end of their lifetimes, the report noted, it would add the equivalent of five years’ global CO2 emissions to the atmosphere. “Phasing out coal plants and avoiding building new ones is no longer a choice, it is an imperative,” said Gutierrez-Espeleta. A global tax of $100 per tons of CO2 would help speed the transition from dirty to clean, renewable energy.

Withdrawin­g fossil fuel subsidies that still total hundreds of millions of dollars per year; halting deforestat­ion and planting more trees; improving livestock management and convincing people to eat less meat-all of these are also seen as critical. But there is no more wiggle room, said Glen Peters, research director of the Center for Internatio­nal Climate Research in Oslo and a reviewer of the report. “Every aspect is at the edge of feasibilit­y,” he said. “If one of them fails, we miss out on closing the 2030 gap.” Actions by cities, businesses and other smaller actors will help at the margin, but will be difficult to quantify, the UN agency said. For the first time, the report devotes an entire chapter to a set of technologi­es that remove CO2 directly out of the air. —AFP

 ??  ?? UTAH: This file photo shows piles of coal in front of Pacificorp’s 1440 megawatt coal fired power plant in Castle Dale, Utah.—AFP
UTAH: This file photo shows piles of coal in front of Pacificorp’s 1440 megawatt coal fired power plant in Castle Dale, Utah.—AFP
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