‘Thundering wake up call’: UN slams political leaders for vast ’emissions gap’ ahead of COP26
World needs collective ambition to rise seven-fold to stand a chance of keeping on a 1.5C warming pathway, and to turn ‘vague’ net zero pledges into action, UN warns
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has castigated governments for their failure in leadership, following a report today revealing the world is facing a catastrophic 2.7C of global warming under national climate plans submitted ahead of next week’s COP26 Climate Summit.
The latest edition of the UN’s Emissions Gap report, published this afternoon, warns that the latest batch of national plans would only see an additional 7.5 per cent cut in greenhouse gas emissions in 2030, compared to the previous round of pledges made five years ago.
It means that, at present, collective global pledges fall wildly short of the 55 per cent reduction by 2030 needed to stave off some of the more crippling effects of climate change by capping global temperature rise at 1.5C, the lower, safer limit set out by the Paris Agreement.
Branding the findings as “another thundering wake-up call”, Guterres slammed governments for a failure in climate leadership and called on countries to come to Glasgow bearing “bold, time-bound, front-loaded plans to reach net zero”.
“The emissions gap is the result of a leadership gap,” he said. “But leaders can still make this a turning point to a greener future instead of a tipping point to climate catastrophe. The era of half measures and hollow promises must end. The time for closing the leadership gap must begin in Glasgow.”
The UK government has repreatedly stated that its overarching goal at the COP26 Climate Summit – which is set to kick off next Monday in Glasgow – is to get sufficient and credible decarbonisation targets and strategies from major emitters to ensure that the 1.5C warming target remains within reach.
But today, Guterres warned the world would need seven times more ambition to keep on the 1.5C track. “We know that humanity’s future depends on keeping global temperature increase to 1.5C by 2030,” he said. “And we also know that, so far, parties to the Paris Agreement are utterly failing to keep this target within reach.”
Now in its 12th year, the UN Emissions Gap report looks at the 120 country climate plans – known as nationally-determined contributions (NDCs), in UN jargon – that have been re-submitted to the UN ahead of the critical climate talks.
However, one kernel of hope highlighted in the report is the prospect of the wave of net zero pledges from countries over the past two years soon making their way into law, and then in turn being translated into effective on-the-ground policies to slash emissions. The findings show that roughly half of global domestic greenhouse emissions are now covered by some form of net zero goal for around mid-century.
To date, 49 countries as well as the EU as a whole have pledged to acheive net zero, and if all these promises were “made robust” and implemented fully, global temperature rise could be reduced by a further 0.5C, the UN report notes today. That would bring predicted global temperature rise to a more manageable – yet still very dangerous – 2.2C of warming by the end of this century, it calculates.
Just 11 parties to the Paris Agreement, together responsible for 12 per cent of global emissions, have enshrined their net zero targets into law to date, accoding to the report.
As such, the UN called on countries to place their headline net zero promises into law, noting that the majority of targets announced by countries to date remain “highly ambiguous”, heavily dependent on emissions cuts after 2030, and left out of national legislation and NDCs.
“Nations need to put in place the policies to meet their new commitments and start implementing them within months,” said Inger Anderson, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme. “They need to make their net zero pledges more concrete, ensuring these commitments are included in NDCs, and action brought forward. They then need to get the policies in place to back this raised ambition and, again, start implementing them urgently.”
The UN report also highlights the failure of global political leaders to leverage the significant fiscal stimulus unleashed in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic towards building a lower carbon economy, noting that just 20 per cent of recovery investments unleashed to May 2021 reduced greenhouse gas emissions.
It warns that the pandemic has highlighted and exacerbated the disparity between low-income economies’ and advanced economies’ public spending capacity, and argues that a “substantial increase in foreign aid” is needed to help emerging and developing economies reduce their climate impacts and prepare for escalating climate impacts.
Caterina Brandmayr, head of climate policy at Green Alliance, said the UN’s report offered a “stark reminder” of the need to go “further and faster” to put the world on track with a 1.5C warming pathway.
“Net zero targets are only the first step, and must urgently be translated into concrete actions, particularly by G20 nations, to cut our climate impact and build resilient economies across the world,” she said. “COP26 must provide a clear route forward to accelerate emission reductions and ensure countries continue to ramp up their near-term climate action.”
Elsewhere in the report, the UN urges world leaders to act on methane emissions and carbon markets at the COP26 Climate Summit.
Echoing the findings of a recent report put out by the IEA, the UN notes that methane is the second largest contributor to global warming, but points out the “no- or low-cost” mitigation measures could reduce emissions by about 20 per cent per year.
Last month the US and EU announced plans to launch a Global Methane Pledge in Glasgow, a move which has already been endorsed by several nations around the world, including the UK. Its stated aim is to collectively slash methane emissions across all sectors by 30 per cent between 2020 and 2030.
The UN has also called for robust, transparent carbon markets with clearly defined rules have significant potential to reduce the costs of the net zero transition, which could in turn spur more ambitious reduction pledges from countries. Revenues from these markets could also fund mitigate and adaptation solutions domestically and in vulnerable nations disproportionately affected by climate change.
One of the key flashpoints between negotiators at the upcoming conference is set to be finalising the rules for Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, which aims to create a framework for countries and companies to meet their climate goals by trading carbon credits.
Labour’s Shadow Business Secretary, Ed Miliband, said the UN had today “sounded the alarm on the world’s failure to close the emissions gap and prevent climate catastrophe”, as he urged the UK government to step up its own efforts as hosts of next week’s Summit in Glasgow.
“It’s time for the government to start telling the truth about how far away we are from where we need to be in this decisive decade,” he said. “The window for action is closing, and it is critical that in the Budget and the days ahead, the Prime Minister and the government step up to make COP26 the summit of climate delivery, not climate delay.”
