How Far Our Climate Goals Have Slipped Out of Reach, In a Single Charthe United Nations is sounding the alarm about the world’s inadequate effort to slow climate change. In a series of reports released this week, the international organization makes clear that emissions are not falling fast enough to stop global temperatures from rising 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century.
To avoid tipping past the 1.5°C threshold, global emissions need to be cut by about half in the next eight years. The only scenario where there’s a chance of that happening, as the below chart shows, is if G20 and other high-emitting countries go beyond their NDCs and achieve net-zero targets, too. The UN notes, however, that this scenario is optimistic.
While all parties to the Paris Agreement are obligated to have an NDC and to pursue the measures within it, each country decides for itself what its climate mitigation goals should look like—and those goals aren’t legally binding. Net-zero emissions targets are often even more toothless because only a handful of countriesThe lack of substantive action year after year means that the odds of being in the 1.5°C to 2°C range are shrinking as the odds of falling in the 2.
The sobering UN reports come one month before the parties meet in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, to further climate talks. At last year’s conference in Glasgow, Scotland, attendees were blunt of meeting the 1.5°C goal, which was originally set in 2015. Now, the reality is even clearer—and the stakes are even higher to meaningfully address impending catastrophe.
It’s too little, too late. We are all doomed?
the big lie,..
need a laugh button,..
Yep. We're screwed.
...and now I present, thoughts on climate change from the google and YouTube researchers in the comments section. Enjoy.
Your not gonna turn around the climate of a planet no time soon. I would think a better priority would be infrastructure to deal with it.
Think we missed that opportunity awhile ago. Because, you know...priorities...($$)
Beep boop beep beep boop.
Meanwhile on Wall Street 🌋
Cool, so can we stop throwing money at a problem that is only redistributing wealth and not actually solving anything?
Climate change is a hoax
Pretty sure I read a similar report from like 50 years ago, but it said ice age incoming?