Climate pledges still 'nowhere near' enough to limit rising temperature to 1.5C

International climate pledges remain far off track to limit rising temperatures to 1.5 degrees Celsius, according to a report released by the United Nations Wednesday, less than two weeks ahead of high-stakes negotiations to tackle global warming.

A man walks across a dried bed of river Yamuna where water levels have reduced drastically following hot weather in New Delhi, India. (May 2022) © AP/Manish Swarup

The combined climate pledges of more than 190 nations that signed up to the 2015 Paris climate deal put Earth on track to warm by around 2.5 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels by the century's end.

With the planet already battered by climate-enhanced heatwaves, storms and floods after just 1.2C of warming, experts say the world is still failing to act with sufficient urgency to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

"We are still nowhere near the scale and pace of emission reductions required to put us on track toward a 1.5 degrees Celsius world," said Simon Stiell, Executive Secretary of UN Climate Change.

🆕 UN Climate Change report 🆕

A new report summarizing countries' national climate plans (#NDCs) shows that current commitments remain insufficient to limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C by the end of the century.#COP27 | #ClimateCrisis

— UN Climate Change (@UNFCCC) October 26, 2022

CO2 emissions

"To keep this goal alive, national governments need to strengthen their climate action plans now and implement them in the next eight years."

The UN's climate experts have said emissions - compared to 2010 levels - need to fall 45 percent by 2030 in order to meet the Paris deal's more ambitious goal.

In its latest report, the UN said that current commitments from governments around the world will in fact increase emissions by 10.6 percent by 2030.

When nations met in Glasgow last year for a previous round of climate negotiations, they agreed to speed up their climate pledges to cut carbon pollution and increase financial flows to vulnerable developing nations.

But only 24 countries, of 193, had updated their plans at the time of the report, which Stiell said was "disappointing".

"Government decisions and actions must reflect the level of urgency, the gravity of the threats we are facing, and the shortness of the time we have remaining to avoid the devastating consequences of runaway climate change," he said.

Cop27 in Egypt

He called on governments to revisit and strengthen their carbon cutting plans in line with the Paris temperature goals before the UN climate meeting (Cop27), which will be held from 6 to 18 November in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.

In the last year alone, the world has seen unprecedented floods, crop-withering heatwaves and wildfires across four continents.

• Heatwaves will make entire regions uninhabitable within decades, report warns

With the impacts slamming hardest into countries least responsible for fossil fuel emissions, calls have grown louder for richer polluters to pay "loss and damage" to vulnerable nations.

In a landmark report this year on climate impacts and vulnerabilities, the UN's 195-nation Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned that time had nearly run out to ensure a "liveable future" for all.

That report was signed off by the same governments that will return to negotiations in Egypt.

(with AFP)