The End of Climate Action in the Twenty-Nineteenth Century: The U.N. Climate Chief Says “There’s No Time Left for Delays”
Countries’ climate action plans are still far behind what’s needed to curb human-caused warming and limit the devastating effects of extreme heat, storms and droughts, but some nations have taken marginal steps toward slashing emissions, a United Nations analysis of national plans found Tuesday.
The report looked into the climate plans of 195 countries and found that emissions from the burning of coal, oil and gas will go up 9% by 2030 compared to 2010 levels, but will be 2% lower than 2019 levels because of some climate action from countries switching to cleaner energy. But climate scientists warn that the world needs to spew around 45% less by then.
In order to boost climate action in the coming years, the US and China will resume talks on energy policies and form a working group. The world has a chance of limiting average increases in global temperatures to just under two degrees Celsius if it acts now, experts say.
He called for “net-zero” — when countries only spew as much carbon into the atmosphere as they can take back out — in developed countries to happen by “as close as possible” to 2040, and 2050 for developing nations.
The UN climate chief called for upcoming international climate talks to be “a turning point” where nations will be able to agree on plans to cut emissions in line with the agreement made in Paris in 2015.
Sultan al-Jaber, president of the COP28 climate talks in Dubai and chief of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, said the report shows “there is simply no time left for delays.”
Extreme weather events are becoming more frequent around the world due to the warming atmosphere. The last year was the hottest one ever recorded, according to an analysis. Many recent droughts, floods and storms were found to have fingerprints of human-cause climate change, according to attribution scientists.
“It’s already hell for a lot of people,” said Disha Ravi, an Indian activist with the youth climate group Fridays for Future, of current extreme weather. “I sometimes wonder if they (leaders) care about lives at all.”
Beijing – China and the U.S. will work together to reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases on a common target of the Group of 20
BEIJING — China and the U.S. have pledged to accelerate their efforts to address climate change ahead of a major U.N. meeting on the issue, making a commitment to take steps to reduce emissions of methane and other greenhouse gases besides carbon dioxide.
The joint announcement came on the eve of a summit between Presidents Biden and Xi Jinping that is aimed at stabilizing the rocky U.S.-China relationship.
Both countries will work together to rise up to one of the greatest challenges of our time and are aware of the important role they play.
Both of the nations that make up the Group of 20 are committed to triple renewable energy capacity by the year 2030. Chinese companies are looking to sell wind and solar power equipment abroad, having invested heavily in factories for their manufacture.
“If the two countries can work together to shore up the buy-in for the target, that will very considerably smooth the way for having it adopted,” said Lauri Myllyvirta, the lead analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air.
The government announced last week that it would begin making “capacity payments” next year to coal power plant operators to keep them open and available for use, even as revenues fall as their electricity production is increasingly replaced by renewable energy.
Waskow wasn’t happy that the joint statement didn’t commit to phase out fossil fuels. China has expanded in wind and solar power, and encouraged construction of coal power plants, which it sees as a more reliable source of power for periods of peak demand.
An accounting and reporting system for emissions was one of the things the Chinese government said they would do to control methane emissions. Coal mines, oil and gas fields, farms, landfills and sewage treatment plants are major emitters.