Greenhouse-Gas Pledges Insufficient to Combat Warming, UN Report Finds
National pledges to cut greenhouse gases by 2020 fall short of reductions needed to limit the rise in global temperatures, according to a report released by the United Nations Environment Program.
Targets in the nonbinding agreement reached in Copenhagen last year would deliver about 60 percent of the cuts needed to keep the world from warming by 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than in pre-industrial times, according to the study released today
The “emissions gap” needs to be discussed when about 190 nations gather in Cancun, Mexico, on Nov. 29 for two weeks of talks on climate change, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said today in a statement. Negotiations for a treaty to fight global warming have stalled amid disagreement between rich and poor countries over how to proceed.
Reducing emissions “is not a luxury choice that we can defer,” UNEP chief Achim Steiner told reporters in London today via a video link from Helsinki. “There’s an ever narrower window of time.”
Negotiators vowed in Copenhagen to cut emissions and stop global temperature increases at 2 degrees Celsius. Without pollution curbs, temperatures would rise by 6 degrees, an increase that would lead “almost certainly to massive climatic change,” the International Energy Agency, an adviser to oil- consuming nations, said in a report last year.
Most Cost-Effective
The most cost-effective way of limiting the temperature gain is to cut global carbon emissions to 44 gigatons in 2020 from about 48 gigatons now, according to today’s report. If nations did nothing to stem gas discharges, emissions would be 56 gigatons by 2020, the report said.
The Copenhagen pledges would lead to 49 to 53 gigatons of emissions in 2020 and a temperature rise of 2.5 to 5 degrees Celsius by 2100, UNEP Chief Scientist Joseph Alcamo told reporters in London.
“There is no time to waste,” Ban said. “By closing the gap between the science and current ambition levels, we can seize the opportunity to usher in a new era of low-carbon prosperity and sustainable development for all.”
An increase in temperatures exceeding 2 degrees will result in more intense flooding and drought and a faster sea-level rise, the UN has said. The 5-gigaton gap between the most ambitious conditional pledges made in Copenhagen and the required 44 gigatons in 2020 equals the pollution from all the world’s cars, buses and trucks in 2005, according to the study.
A gigaton of carbon-dioxide, a main greenhouse gas, equals 1 billion metric tons of carbon, or about the annual emissions from international aviation and shipping, the report said.
To contact the reporters on this story: Kim Chipman in Washington at kchipman@bloomberg.net; Alex Morales in London at amorales2@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Larry Liebert at LLiebert@bloomberg.net.
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