‘Crunch
time for real’: UN says time for climate delays has run out
Means to
stop catastrophic global heating exist, says UN chief, but political courage is
needed to end world’s fossil fuel addiction
Damian
Carrington Environment editor
Thu 24 Oct
2024 15.00 BST
The huge
cuts in carbon emissions now needed to end the climate crisis mean it is
“crunch time for real”, according to the UN’s environment chief.
An
unprecedented global mobilisation of renewable energy, forest protection and
other measures is needed to steer the world off the current path towards a
catastrophic temperature rise of 3.1C, a report from the UN environment
programme (Unep) has found. Extreme heatwaves, storms, droughts and floods are
already ravaging communities with less than 1.5C of global heating to date.
Current
carbon-cutting promises by countries for 2030 are not being met, according to
the report, and even if they were met, the temperature rise would only be
limited to a still-disastrous 2.6C to 2.8C. There is no more time for “hot
air”, the report said, urging nations to act at the Cop29 summit in November.
Keeping the
international goal of 1.5C within reach was technically possible, said the
report, but it required emissions to fall by 7.5% annually until 2035. That
means halting emissions equivalent to those of the EU every year for a decade.
Delaying emissions cuts only means steeper reductions would be needed in
future.
Unep said
countries must collectively commit to cut 42% off annual greenhouse gas
emissions by 2030 and 57% by 2035 in their next UN pledges, called nationally
determined contributions and due in February. Without these pledges, and rapid
action to back them up, the 1.5C goal would be gone, the UN said.
However, the
head of Unep, Inger Andersen, said it was misguided to fixate only on whether
the 1.5C target was kept or not, because every fraction of a degree of global
heating avoided would save lives, damage and costs: “Don’t over-focus on a
magic number. Keeping temperature as low as possible is where we need to be.”
The finance
and technology to slash emissions exists, Andersen said, but “political
courage” was needed, particularly from the G20 nations (excluding the African
Union) that cause 77% of global emissions.
Andersen
said the world’s nations made strong climate promises at the Paris summit in
2015. “Now is the time to live up to that – it’s climate crunch time for real.
We need global mobilisation on a scale and pace never seen before, starting
right now, or the 1.5C goal will soon be dead and the ‘well below 2C’ target
will take its place in the intensive care unit.”
Unep’s last
two annual reports highlighted “the closing window” for action and the “broken
record” of failed promises. “Now we’re saying, this is it,” she said.
“The
irritating thing is technology is there for the grasping, as are the job and
economic development opportunities,” Andersen said. “It just takes political
courage and some strong leadership.”
The UN
secretary general, António Guterres, said: “We’re playing with fire; but there
can be no more playing for time. We’re out of time.” He said global heating was
supercharging monster hurricanes, bringing biblical floods, turning forests
into tinder boxes and cities into saunas.
“Governments
must wean us off our fossil fuel addiction: showing how they will phase them
out – fast and fairly,” he said, adding that levies on fossil fuels could help
pay for climate action.
The Unep
report found that faster rollout of solar and wind energy could provide 27% of
the emissions cuts needed. “That’s massive and this is a cheap, proven
technology – it’s not a gamble to invest in,” Andersen said.
Stopping the
destruction of forests could bring another 20% cut, the report said. Much of
the rest could come from energy efficiency and the electrification of
buildings, transport and industry, as well as cutting methane emissions from
fossil fuel facilities, which Andersen described as “not hard”.
The
estimated investment needed to cut emissions to net zero is $1-2tn a year,
according to the report, about 1% of the value of the global economy and
financial markets. “We’re talking a couple of percentage points that would be
incremental in terms of renewal of ageing infrastructure” in developed
countries, said Andersen. But developing countries would need finance from rich
nations, a topic at the top of the Cop29 agenda.
The global
geopolitical situation was difficult, acknowledged Andersen, with conflicts in
the Middle East and Ukraine, and tensions between western nations and Russia
and China. But she said: “If there is a space where the world has been able to
meet, it is really the environment space.”
She cited a
recent G20 meeting of environment and climate ministers. “These are not the
best friends, all of them, and yet they managed to have a [good] communique.”
She said there had been significant green policy shifts in the US, China,
Germany, India and Brazil, but a a much greater effort was required.
“The sooner
we strike out hard for a low-carbon, sustainable and prosperous future, the
sooner we will get there – which will save lives, save money and protect the
planetary systems upon which we all depend,” she said.
“World
leaders continue to drag their feet, protecting the interests of the fossil
fuel industry, while people are suffering right now. At Cop29, leaders must
respond and act on their fair share of responsibility – especially wealthier
nations who have fuelled this crisis for decades,” said Harjeet Singh, at the
Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative.
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