U.N. says only a ‘quantum leap’ can keep global climate goals within reach

If there’s any way that countries might avert planetary catastrophe, they haven’t yet laid out the details explaining how.

But nations will need to update their pledges for reducing greenhouse gas emissions next year, detailing the steps they will take over the coming decade. And a United Nations report released Thursday said that nothing short of a “quantum leap in ambition” will suffice at a time when the world is on course to blow past all targets for limiting warming.

That’s the core message of this year’s U.N. Emissions Gap report — a definitive, annual assessment of the planet’s trajectory — which tries to take stock of both the planet’s future warming given policies in place, and the additional steps that would be necessary to meet climate goals. This year’s report reads like a pep talk for world leaders and policymakers who’ve made a tough task vanishingly more difficult by allowing greenhouse gas emissions to continue to rise; by so far setting national goals that are insufficient; and by not fulfilling even those pledges.

“We’re playing with fire; but there can be no more playing for time,” U.N. Secretary General António Guterres said in a message about the report.

“Another year passing with no action means we’re worse off,” said Anne Olhoff, the report’s chief scientific editor.

At the moment, even the sum of national pledges — some of which are predicated on obtaining outside financing — put the Earth on a path to warm by an estimated 2.6 degrees Celsius (4.7 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of the century. When countries struck the Paris agreement in 2015, they agreed to hold warming to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius, compared to preindustrial levels, while aiming for an even more ambitious target of 1.5 degrees Celsius.

If countries also adhere to all nonbinding, long-term net zero pledges in addition to their national targets, warming could be limited to 1.9 degrees Celsius, the report said. But they are so far not taking the steps to put those goals within reach.

In a foreword to the emissions report, Inger Andersen, the executive director of the U.N. Environment Program, said that without a “massive increase in ambition” in the new pledges, “1.5 C will be dead within a few years and 2 C will take its place in the intensive care unit.”

Many scientists say that the 1.5 goal — seen as a benchmark for limiting the most dire consequences of warming — has already been lost. Still, the ability to limit warming even beyond that mark is important, as cataclysms are projected to become more severe with every fractional rise in temperatures.

According to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, global monthly temperatures have exceeded preindustrial levels by 1.5 degrees Celsius for 14 consecutive months. That heat has costly and deadly consequences, contributing in recent months to record heat waves in the Middle East, hurricanes that have swelled in unusually warm Gulf of Mexico waters, and extensive flooding in Europe and Africa.

The national pledges, to be updated and strengthened at least every five years, are supposed to be building blocks toward the goals of the Paris agreement. The next round of pledges — known in climate jargon as NDCs (nationally determined contributions) — are due by early next year, this time reflecting measures and targets for 2035.

The Emissions Gap report shows how these targets can be improved. To date, the report says, only a minority of countries’ pledges lay out absolute greenhouse gas reduction targets relative to a baseline from an earlier year. And those targets tend to address emissions nationwide, rather than setting goals for specific sectors and industries.

At last year’s international climate summit in Dubai, known as COP28, countries agreed on “transitioning away” from fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas.

But the measures for following through on this “are not explicitly reflected” in most existing NDCs, the report says.

The burden falls foremost on the world’s major economies: Group of 20 nations last year accounted for 77 percent of global emissions.

“Governments have agreed to align these plans with 1.5 degrees,” Guterres said. “That means they must drive down all greenhouse gas emissions and cover the whole economy — pushing progress in every sector. And they must wean us off our fossil fuel addiction: showing how governments will phase them out — fast and fairly.”

By 2030, the report says, emissions need to be reduced by 42 percent (relative to 2019 levels) to put the world on a 1.5 degrees Celsius pathway, and by 28 percent to stay in line with 2 degrees Celsius. For perspective, CO2 emissions dropped 5.4 percent in 2020 — a year when the coronavirus pandemic drove economies into swift recession and halted the vast majority of international travel.

A part of the emissions reductions will come from technologies that are already being rapidly adopted, like solar power and electric vehicles. The International Energy Agency, in a separate report released last week, projects solar power to come online over the rest of the decade faster than the rise in electricity demand. This will automatically trim the space for oil, gas and coal, the agency says — just not rapidly enough to meet global targets.