Earth Today | Report supports emissions reduction focus
Published:Thursday | August 22, 2024 | 12:07 AM
THE MOVE by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and partners to help countries hone in on their emissions reduction commitments, through a series of regional meetings, has validation in the recent Emissions Gap Report.
That report, published by UNEP in 2023, paints a picture of a world that has much to do towards scaled-up greenhouse gas emissions cuts, which, if not achieved, will result in global temperatures well above what was agreed to in the Paris Agreement and which is safe for people.
Titled Broken Record: Temperatures hit new highs, yet world fails to cut emissions (again), the report notes that “immediate and unprecedented mitigation action is needed in this decade to reduce total global greenhouse gas emissions, compared with levels implied by the current nationally determined contributions (NDCs), and to ultimately narrow the emissions gap”.
“Overcompliance of NDC targets for 2030 is not only necessary to maintain the possibility of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius with no or limited overshoot, it will also enable countries to put forward more ambitious mitigation targets for 2035 in their next NDCs, and will make the achievement of such ambitious targets more feasible,” the report added.
NDCs are individual country plans to reduce national emissions – which provide the fuel for the warming of the planet, putting populations at risk from climate impacts, including extreme weather events, the likes of which was experienced with the passage of Hurricane Beryl.
Global temperatures and the range of other climate impacts are driven by the emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) associated with human consumption of fossil fuels, including coal and oil.According to the report, there is a clear need to accelerate actions to reduce emissions.
“... Not only temperature records continue to be broken – global GHG emissions and atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) also set new records in 2022. Due to the failure to stringently reduce emissions in high-income and high-emitting countries (which bear the greatest responsibility for past emissions) and to limit emissions growth in low- and middle-income countries (which account for the majority of current emissions), unprecedented action is now needed by all countries,” the report said.
“For high-income countries, this implies further accelerating domestic emissions reductions, committing to reaching net zero as soon as possible – and sooner than the global averages from the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report implies – and at the same time providing financial and technical support to low-and middle-income countries,” it added.
“For low- and middle-income countries, it means that pressing development needs must be met alongside a transition away from fossil fuels. Furthermore, the delay in stringent mitigation action will likely increase future dependence on carbon dioxide removal (CDR) from the atmosphere, but availability of large-scale CDR options in the future cannot be taken for granted,” it said further.
Also at play, the report revealed, are inequalities among countries concerning their consumption of fossil fuels.
“Inequality in consumption-based emissions is also found among and within countries. Globally, the 10 per cent of the population with the highest income accounted for nearly half (48 per cent) of emissions, with two-thirds of this group living in developed countries. The bottom 50 per cent of the world population contributed only 12 per cent of total emissions,” it said.
It is against this background that the UNEP and partners, including the NDCs Partnership, are hosting the series of regional meetings, including in Latin America and the Caribbean, next week to help countries work through their new NDCs, due next year, in line with obligations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
The meetings are to allow for peer-learning and the chance to look at innovative financing models, as well as to facilitate sharing about how to develop “policy road maps that lead to implementation”.