The world must abandon polluting fossil fuels, peak CO2 emissions by 2025 and do “much more, now, on all fronts” to tackle the climate crisis, according to a report prepared under the auspices of the Organization of the United Nations Climate Change, which will be at the center of COP28 to be held in Dubai in three months.
This long-awaited 90-page report with 17 “key lessons” is the first assessment of all the efforts made or not made since 2015 by humanity to meet the Paris Agreement and its most ambitious goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°. c.
The Secretary General of the UN, António Guterres, yesterday warned the leaders who will participate this weekend in the G-20 summit in New Delhi that the world “cannot continue like this” and that the lack of unity of the countries facing global problems can lead “to catastrophe.”
This latest wake-up call from the UN comes as leaders of major G-20 countries meet in New Delhi, with little hope of achieving ambitious progress on the climate issue. Greenhouse gas emissions from the United States and Europe have been declining for years, while those from China (the world's largest emitter) and India continue to rise.
The document presented yesterday is the first technical step of the first “global assessment” of the Paris Agreement, which the signatory countries must conclude at the 28th UN climate conference, from November 30 to December 12 in the United Arab Emirates United, agreeing on a political decision commensurate with what is at stake, even more so after the hottest summer ever recorded in the world, marked by multiple heat waves, floods, fires and other extreme weather phenomena encouraged by climate change.
Based on the alarming scientific reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, this evaluation will be the indisputable basis of the tough negotiations of this conference, announced as the largest COP in history (90,000 people are expected), with the future of fossil fuels – coal, oil and gas – in the spotlight. “The world is not on track to achieve the long-term goals of the Paris Agreement,” the report concludes, as expected.
Meanwhile, global warming has already reached around 1.2ºC compared to the pre-industrial era. And its devastating effects multiply with each additional tenth of a degree of warming. “Although action continues, much remains to be done on all fronts,” the report summarizes. In particular, “developing renewable energies and abandoning all fossil fuels without CO2 capture are indispensable elements of a just energy transition towards carbon neutrality,” the report states, raising the issue of fossil fuels, not explicitly mentioned in the Agreement of Paris, at the center of the negotiations. Humanity must “reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by 43% by 2030 and by 60% by 2035 compared to 2019 levels,” and achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, continue. But time is short.
“There is a rapidly closing window of opportunity to increase ambitions and implement existing commitments to limit global warming to 1.5°C,” warns the report, authored by a South African expert and his American counterpart after years of consultations with experts from member countries of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and observers from environmental NGOs.
In response, the report once again outlines ways to scale up funding efforts, primarily in developing countries. "The fundamental principles of the Paris Agreement are still not being respected by the 197 parties," but "the burden of the response falls mainly on 20 countries," UN Climate Chief Simon Stiell told Afp on Thursday. addressing the G-20 leaders.
