Climate change: The world will face a warming of 2.5 to 2.9 degrees Celsius this century if proper climate action is not taken, according to the United Nations 2023 Emissions Gap Report. Therefore, countries must implement strategies beyond the Paris Agreement’s pledges to prevent this scenario. In order to ensure that the global average temperature rise is between two degrees Celsius and 1.5 degrees Celsius, the predicted 2030 emissions must decrease by 28 to 42 per cent.
It is extremely important to narrow the emissions gap, and this is possible through mitigation and low-carbon transformations.
Parties can build greater ambition for the next round of climate pledges at COP28, the 28th UN Climate Change Conference set to be held in Dubai, and the Global Stocktake, an assessment of progress made towards mitigating global warming since the Paris Agreement in 2015. At COP28, the results from the first-ever global stocktake will be discussed.
The UN report, released ahead of COP28, said that in order to maintain the possibility of achieving the Paris Agreement temperature goals, which is to limit global temperature increase to well below two degrees Celsius, but maintain efforts to ensure that the global temperature increase is limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius, it is important to strengthen mitigation this decade as this will narrow the emissions gap. By strengthening mitigations, nations will be able to set more ambitious targets for 2035 in the next round of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), which are climate action plans signed by all the Parties to the Paris Agreement to cut emissions and adapt to climate impacts.
All this will increase the chances of meeting net-zero pledges.
As many as 86 days with temperatures over 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels were recorded until the beginning of October this year. In September, global average temperatures were 1.8 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, making it the hottest recorded month ever.
In a statement released by the UN, Secretary-General Antònio Guterres said that it is still possible to make the 1.5 degrees Celsius limit a reality, and that it requires “tearing out the poisoned root” of the climate crisis, which is fossil fuels. For this, a just, equitable renewables transition is needed.
Inger Anderson, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), said in the statement that there is no person or economy left on the planet untouched by climate change, so it is important to stop unwanted records on greenhouse gas emissions, global temperature highs, and extreme weather.
She emphasised that the world must lift the needle out of the same old groove of insufficient ambition and not enough action, and start setting other records, which would be on cutting emissions, on green and just transitions, and on climate finance.