World’s Emissions Gap Is Growing, with No Sign of Peaking Soon, UN Warns

Leslie Hook published an article in Inside Climate News called “World’s Emissions Gap is Growing, with No Sign of Peaking Soon, UN Warns,” in which she highlights the jaw-dropping gap between the future emissions reduction necessary to meet the Paris-Climate Agreement and the United Nations emissions projections. A new United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) climate report explains that the world would need to reduce emissions by 2.7% annually for the next ten 10 years to meet the 2°C temperature rise goal. Unfortunately, that same report discovered “no sign” that global emissions were being reduced, let alone that they would cease rising in the near future.

The executive director of the UNEP, Inger Andersen, stated, “We need to catch up on the years in which we procrastinated. If we do not do this, the 1.5°C (Paris-Climate) goal will be out of reach before 2030.” This objective of peaking at a 1.5°C global temperature raise from pre-industrial levels was devised in order to “limit the worst impacts of climate change.” However, the world is over-emitting carbon at a rate that corresponds to a 3.2°C increase in global temperatures by 2100, a temperature increase of more than double what we need to “limit the worst impacts of climate change.” Even to maintain a 2°C warming, the UN report stated the world would need to reduce current emissions by 25% by 2030.

Following the release of the UNEP report, a group of leading research organizations in collaboration with the UNEP, released the first Production Gap report, assessing the difference between the UNEP’s findings as to carbon reductions and what each countries’ fossil fuel production projections were. The report’s main findings include:

The frightening conclusion, “if the world’s top fossil fuel-producing nations follow through on their current plans, they will produce about 50 percent more oil, gas and coal by 2030 than would be compatible with the international goal of keeping global warming under 2°C, and two times more than would be allowable to stay under 1.5°C.” The production gap explains how drastically countries are over-emitting carbon and how at this rate, the consequences are dire. Evidently, additional change is necessary and the world’s regulatory bodies need to take action.

To read Hook’s article in Inside Climate News, click here: “World’s Emissions Gap is Growing, with No Sign of Peaking Soon, UN Warns,” by Leslie Hook.