World facing ‘catastrophic’ 2.5 degree rise this century, UN report warns

Global temperatures rise is set to hit 2.5 degrees by the end of this century, a level that would condemn the world to catastrophic climate breakdown, according to the United Nations.

This level of global heating is a consequence of inadequate pledges by countries, including Ireland, to cut their greenhouse gas emissions, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) warns in its latest “synthesis report” — an assessment of commitments made under national plans known as nationally determined contributions (NDCs).

Only a handful of countries have strengthened their commitments substantially in the past year despite having promised to do so at Cop26 UN climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, last November, it confirms. Deeper cuts are needed to limit temperature rises to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels, which would avoid the worst ravages of extreme weather, the report adds.

Ireland, which has one of the most ambitious decarbonisation targets in the world by committing to a 51 per cent cut in emissions by 2030 based on 2018 levels and to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, has not increased its ambition since Cop26.

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UNFCCC executive secretary Simon Stiell said: “This does not go far enough, fast enough. This is nowhere near the scale of reductions required to put us on track to 1.5 degrees. National governments must set new goals now and implement them in the next eight years.”

As plans for emissions cuts that countries submitted in Glasgow were inadequate to meet the 1.5-degree goal — a key Paris Agreement target — they agreed a “ratchet” mechanism to toughen their targets year-on-year. However, few governments have updated their plans on emissions in line with 1.5 degrees.

Plans submitted by governments would lead to a temperature rise of between 2.1 and 2.9 degrees, with the best estimate about 2.5 degrees, the report finds. This represents a “marginal” improvement, Mr Stiell noted, on the 2.7-degree temperature rise that would have followed from the commitments made at Glasgow.

Australia made a significant improvement to its national plan, but only 24 countries have submitted new NDCs since Cop26. Many of those countries — including the UK and Egypt, host of the Cop27 summit starting next month — submitted new NDCs that were not substantially stronger than their previous plans.

The report shows current NDCs would lead to an increase in emissions of about 10.6 per cent by 2030 compared with 2010 levels. This is an improvement over last year’s assessment, which found countries were on a path to increase emissions by 13.7 per cent by 2030 compared with 2010 levels. But leading climate scientists under the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have estimated emissions need to fall by about 45 per cent by 2030 compared with 2010 levels to give the world a chance of staying within 1.5 degrees.

“What this shows is that some progress has been made [since Cop26] but that progress is highly insufficient. We are moving forward but every year is a critical year,” Mr Stiell said.

He added: “At Glasgow last year all countries agreed to revisit and strengthen their climate plans. The fact that only 24 new or updated climate plans were submitted since Cop26 is disappointing. Government decisions and actions must reflect the level of urgency, the gravity of the threats we are facing, and the shortness of the time we have remaining to avoid the devastating consequences of runaway climate change.”

A spokesman for the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications said the EU and member states jointly submitted an enhanced NDC in December 2020, which confirmed a commitment to a binding target of a net domestic reduction of at least 55 per cent in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 compared to 1990.

He said the Cop26 “Glasgow Climate Pact” requests countries to revisit and strengthen the 2030 targets in their NDCs, as necessary, to align with the Paris agreement temperature goal by the end of 2022.

The “Fit for 55″ package will enable the EU to implement its NDC, he added. “Once this climate package has been agreed through the EU legislative process, the EU will update the NDC of the EU and its member states, in line with the Glasgow Climate Pact and confirmed in the EU Council conclusions adopted Monday at Environment Council.”

A second UN report on long-term low-emission development strategies, also released on Wednesday, examined plans that many countries have put in place to reach net zero emissions by or around mid-century. These plans showed emissions could be about 68 per cent lower in 2050 than in 2019, if all long-term strategies were fully implemented on time.

As the climate responds to cumulative emissions, the world could still exceed the 1.5-degree temperature limit even if the long-term plans are met, which is why the NDCs — which focus on emissions for this decade — are so crucial.

Some governments in developed countries have privately said they believe their current NDCs are sufficiently strong and that other major emitters — including China, the world’s biggest emitter, and oil producers such as Russia and Saudi Arabia — need to step up more.

With fossil fuel prices having soared since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, many governments have tried to increase gas supplies and some — including Ireland — have turned to coal to solve the energy crisis.

Taryn Fransen, senior fellow at the World Resources Institute, said: “These reports sound the alarm that progress on climate commitments has slowed to a crawl since the Glasgow climate summit last year. While new targets that came in from countries like Australia and Indonesia offer some momentum, on the whole national climate targets put the world on track to warm 2.4-2.6 degrees, which is dangerously high.”

Record methane levels

Meanwhile, methane levels in the atmosphere are accelerating and threatening to undermine efforts to slow climate change, according to a study by the World Meteorological Organisation. The WMO’s greenhouse gas bulletin says “global emissions have rebounded since the Covid-related lockdowns”, while increases in methane levels in 2020 and 2021 were the largest since systematic record keeping began in 1983.

Atmospheric levels of all three major greenhouse gases — carbon-dioxide, nitrous-oxide and methane — have reached record highs, it confirms.

The rapid rise in methane levels in recent years has puzzled scientists. Some have blamed it on an increase in fracking in the US but this was cast in doubt as industrial emissions were not showing a similarly sharp rise. Methane has more than 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide in the near term though CO2 has a longer-lasting effect.

The latest theory is that the methane rise could be caused by activities of microbes in wetlands, rice paddies and the guts of ruminants. Rising temperatures have caused the ideal conditions for microbial methane production, as they enjoy warm, damp areas.

Carbon dioxide levels are also soaring, with the jump from 2020 to 2021 larger than the annual growth rate over the past decade. — Additional reporting Guardian