Global warming outpacing efforts to slow it, says UN

PARIS: Humanity is falling further behind in the race against climate change, with the gap between greenhouse gas emissions and levels needed to achieve the Paris climate treaty temperature goals continuing to widen, the United Nations said.

With only 1°C of warming so far, the world has seen a crescendo of deadly wildfires, heatwaves and hurricanes.

On current trends, temperatures are on track to rise roughly 4°C by the century’s end, a scenario that would tear at the fabric of civilisation, scientists say.

To cap global warming at 2°C, national carbon-cutting pledges annexed to the 2015 Paris Agreement must collectively triple by 2030, according to the UN Environment Programme’s (Unep) Emissions Gap report.

To hold the rise in Earth’s temperature to 1.5°C above the preindustrial benchmark, such efforts would have to increase fivefold.

“The emissions gap is much bigger than last year,” Unep’s Philip Drost, a coordinator for the annual report’s ninth edition, said.

One obvious reason was a spike last year in the quantity of carbon dioxide, methane and other planet-warming gases escaping into the atmosphere.

This trend is set to continue this year, which saw a jump in CO2 emissions from the energy sector, according to the International Energy Agency, as well as an increase in the atmospheric concentration of CO2.