European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) has analyzed all the reports and says that current climate commitments submitted by 155 countries for the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP21, is not much efficient and will make the global temperature increase by 3-degrees Celsius.
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The report is, in part, a outcome of the structure of the agreement, in which countries have been asked to submit pledges, or individual nationally determined contributions (INDC), based on their own greenhouse gas-cutting capabilities.
“We welcome the report from the UNFCCC, and we are encouraged that the analysis shows that the cumulative commitments by countries will bring global average emissions per capita down by as much as 8% in 2025 and 9% by 2030”.
Speaking at the launch of the report, Christina Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC, said that the report represents about 86 per cent of all the green house gas emissions in the world and includes submissions of all industrialized countries and about 75 per cent of the developing countries.
If the Paris talks do succeed, the world will agree to a legally binding universal agreement meant to keep global warming below 2 degree Celsius.
Despite the multiple social and economic challenges facing BASIC countries, the are undertaking robust actions domestically on climate change, said Xie.
The global push to fight climate change must intensify after a major meeting in Paris, said poorer nations on Tuesday, who are reconciled to disappointment in any upcoming deal.
“Fully implemented these plans together begin to make a significant dent in the growth of greenhouse gas emissions: as a floor they provide a foundation upon which ever higher ambition can be built”, she added.
Acknowledging this didn’t go far enough, the United Nations climate chief said “dramatic” changes were still required over the next five to 10 years and urged negotiators in Paris not to be “irresponsible”.
“An unprecedented world-wide effort is underway to combat climate change, building confidence that nations can cost-effectively meet their stated objective of keeping a global temperature rise to under 2 degrees Celsius”, it said in an assessment of the country pledges.
He noted that a Paris deal requires setting up “rules for scaling up the ambition set out in the national contributions over time”. “Many countries have been healthily conservative about what they have put forward”, she said. Avoiding unsafe climate change also depends on countries continuing to strengthen their actions over time. The Clean Power Plan, recently finalized by the EPA, calls for Montana to reduce carbon emissions from power plants 47 percent by 2030.
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“The Paris agreement has not yet been sealed, but is already raising our sights about what’s possible”, according to a statement from World Resources Institute.
