SEIZES POWER ‘Global warming likely to be less severe’

RODRIGO DUTERTE, president of the Philippines BONN: Global warming is likely to be slightly less severe than previously expected, thanks to stronger climate policies by China and India that will offset less action by the United States under President Donald Trump, a study showed yesterday.

But average world temperatures are still on track to rise far above the key goal set in the 2016 Paris Agreement of limiting warming to “well below” 2°C above pre-industrial times, it said.

The Carbon Action Tracker (CAT) report, by three independent European research groups, said current policies meant the world was headed for a warming of 3.4°C by 2100, down from 3.6 °C it predicted a year ago.

“This is the first time since the CAT began tracking action in 2009 that policies at a national level have visibly reduced its end of century temperature estimate,” it said.

China was on track to overachieve its pledge under the Paris Agreement to peak its carbon emissions by 2030, it said.

And India was also making progress to limit a surge in emissions driven by more coal use.

A rise of 3°C in global average temperatures could cause loss of tropical coral reefs, Alpine glaciers, Arctic summer sea ice and perhaps an irreversible melt of Greenland’s ice that would drive up world sea levels, a United Nations science panel said.

“It is clear who the leaders are here: in the face of US inaction, China and India are stepping up,” said Bill Hare of Climate Analytics, one of the research groups. Reuters