The combined climate pledges of countries around the world set it on course for a dangerous 2.5C of warming, far higher than the 1.5C limit countries committed to in Glasgow at COP26 last year.
That’s the verdict of a crucial United Nations assessment of how political pledges from 193 countries that signed the historic Paris Agreement stack up together.
It warns the world is on course for 2.5C of warming – and that’s assuming that all plans are indeed implemented.
This marks progress from when the landmark Paris climate accord was struck in 2015, when the world was on track for 4C of warming.
But it is still far higher than the now widely accepted 1.5C limit that the world needs to stick to in order to avoid the worst flooding, heatwaves, droughts and melting of the ice caps, which together are threatening lives, homes, jobs, health and food security.
“To put it bluntly,” said executive secretary of UN Climate Change Simon Stiell, countries’ climate action plans as they stand “simply aren’t good enough”.
They are “nowhere near” the scale and speed needed to keep the world within safe limits, he added as he launched the report on Wednesday morning.
COP26 president Alok Sharma threatens to quit if new PM ditches net zero commitment
Climate change: Global warming ‘could reach 4C by end of this century’ after COP26 fell short of its aims, say experts
Climate change overtakes pandemics as greatest worry for global experts
However, the annual synthesis of plans said that they are at least starting to bend the curve of global greenhouse gas emissions downward.
Today’s report also shows current commitments will increase emissions by 10.6% by 2030, compared to 2010 levels, an improvement since last year when the figure was 13.7%.
Alok Sharma MP, COP26 President, said: “It is critical that we do everything within our means to keep 1.5C in reach, as we promised in the Glasgow Climate Pact.”
The UK will in two weeks pass the baton to Egypt to take up the presidency for COP27, which it is hosting in November.
The reports shows that “although we have made some progress – and every fraction of a degree counts – much more is needed urgently,” Mr Sharma added. “We need the major emitters to step up and increase ambition ahead of COP27.”
Watch the Daily Climate Show at 3.30pm Monday to Friday, and The Climate Show with Tom Heap on Saturday and Sunday at 3.30pm and 7.30pm.
All on Sky News, on the Sky News website and app, on YouTube and Twitter.
The show investigates how global warming is changing our landscape and highlights solutions to the crisis.
