COP26: Bleak climate report shows colossal challenge facing UN conference
Today's Emissions Gap Report spells out, in the starkest of terms, just how far away the UN-led process is from delivering its aim of preventing dangerous levels of climate change.
Tuesday 26 October 2021 15:45, UK
The prime minister's comment yesterday that success at the COP climate summit in Glasgow is "touch and go" was not a throwaway remark.
Today's Emissions Gap Report spells out, in the starkest of terms, just how far away the UN-led process is from delivering its aim of preventing dangerous levels of climate change.
It estimates the carbon-cutting commitments that countries are bringing to Glasgow currently put us on a trajectory for 2.7 degrees of warming by the end of this century.
That level of warming would lead to extremely dangerous extremes of weather and climate endangering food and water supplies, wipe many low-lying nations off the map due to several metres of sea-level rise (although this would take centuries more), not to mention obliterating most of the world's glaciers and killing our existing coral reefs.
The report also lays bare the colossal challenge of how much we need to change.
The fact that 192 nations' best efforts - assuming they are taking the COP process seriously - amounts to cutting emissions by 7.5% when we need to be cutting them by 55%.
The report's findings are so bleak in fact, you'd be forgiven for thinking, "why bother?"
Well, one good reason not to is that this UNEP report is by far one of the most pessimistic.
It ignores, for example, the emissions reductions that are already happening around the world.
More power is coming from renewables, more cars are powered by batteries - and the costs of those things are falling.
It also does not include carbon cutting pledges made beyond the government level.
Australia's six states, for example, have pledged emissions cuts that go beyond its national government, and many companies now have credible net zero commitments because their customers demand them.
The success of COP will be defined on whether a sense of optimism and continued ambition can be maintained in the face of just how colossal the challenge is.
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