World far off track to meet climate goals: UN

THE UN estimated Tuesday that nations’ carbon-cutting pledges imply a far-from-sufficient 10-percent emissions cut by 2035, cautioning that it was unable to provide a robust global overview after most countries failed to submit their plans on time.
With just days to go before tense COP30 climate talks in Brazil, UN Climate Change provided an emissions calculation alongside its formal assessment of national 2035 pledges.
The extra calculation incorporated elements from major polluters such as China and the European Union, which have not submitted full official updated pledges.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said last week that slow action from nations meant it was “inevitable” that efforts to limit temperature rise to 1.5C would fail in the short term, unleashing devastating impacts during a period of overshoot as countries worked to pull temperatures back down again by the end of the century.
UN climate chief Simon Stiell said the estimated 10-per-cent emissions cut suggested that “humanity is now clearly bending the emissions curve downwards for the first time, although still not nearly fast enough”. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has said emissions must fall 60 per cent by 2035, from 2019 levels, for a good chance of limiting global warming to 1.5 Celsius above pre-industrial levels — the more ambitious goal of the Paris climate deal.
“The science is equally clear that temperatures absolutely can and must be brought back down to 1.5C as quickly as possible after any temporary overshoot, by substantially stepping up the pace on all fronts,” Stiell said in a statement.
The two-week COP30 climate negotiations in the Amazon, which start on 10 November, are tasked with galvanizing momentum in the face of a hostile United States, geopolitical tensions, economic concerns and fears that the most ambitious climate targets are al-
ready slipping out of reach. — AFP

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