The world is once again coming together to plan, propose, broker, and agree supposedly game-changing environmental action and policy. But the UN climate summit has consistently failed to deliver much more than lip service.
On Monday 10th November, global leaders, scientific experts, campaigners and lobbyists will meet in Belém, Brazil. The goal is to try and right our current planetary trajectory, which is on course to overshoot the target of limiting global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.
The goal was ratified a decade ago by way of the 2015 Paris Agreement on Climate Change. The headline act from that year’s UN Climate Summit – COP21, held in the French capital – back then it seemed like the conference wasn’t just necessary, but also effective and vital.
10 years on and things look worse than ever. The scientific consensus that climate change, at its current level, is human-made and avoidable, has only grown stronger and more vocal. But the bleak reality of how far this is now pushing ecosystems is leading many to bury their heads in the sand.
The incredible cost of treating this condition – far higher than it would have been, say, a decade or two ago – is catalysing a push back from some deniers. Meanwhile, emissions, pollution, and habitat loss continue to increase.
On Tuesday, the UN Environment Programme published its 16th global assessment of the ’emissions gap’. Many countries have now produced their mandatory national climate plans, as stipulated in the Paris Agreement, however it would appear these barely begin to scratch the surface of what needs to be done.
Even if all measures are successfully implemented by 2035, we are on track for between 2.3 and 2.5C warming this century. However, if policy change doesn’t happen at scale, it could be more like 2.8C above pre-industrial temperatures. Which would be catastrophic.
Time is running out, as is patience with COP given where we are, and where it has promised to get us. And that’s before we come to myriad controversies that have darkened the doors of recent editions, from fossil fuel producing and human rights violating hosts, to the number of oil and gas representatives in attendance to lobby for their industry, and behind-closed-doors deals which threaten to wreak even more environmental havoc.
‘The UN’s warning is stark: projected warming has barely shifted, falling by only 0.3°C – and even that modest progress is at risk. We are not simply missing targets; we are sleepwalking towards catastrophe,’ said Dr Amy McDonnell, Campaign Director of the Zero Hour climate and nature campaign.
‘We need a complete reset at COP30. Ministers must take the lead on the global stage – ending the culture of delay and ensuring climate and nature commitments are treated not as aspirations but as binding obligations, with real consequences for failure,’ she continued. ‘The age of empty promises is over. This summit must be the moment the world finally matches its rhetoric with reality – or we will condemn the most vulnerable to the devastating impacts we already know are coming.’
Putting it into numbers, the emissions gap assessment shows:
*2.3% increase in CO2 equivalent greenhouse gas output from 2023 to 2024 – significantly higher than previous 12 months (1.6%)
*Deforestation and land use played a ‘decisive’ role in this rise, with South America witnessing more loss of forest than at any point since 1997
*Removing land use, G20 countries now account for 77% of the emissions increase,
*China, the US, India, the EU, Russia and Indonesia are the world’s largest emitters
*64 nations have submitted national climate plans – or nationally determined contributions (NDCs) – and 60 of those account for 63% of global emissions
*China’s emissions will peak in 2025 and fall by 0.3-1.4GtCO2e before the end of this decade
*By 2030, US emissions will rise by 1GtCO2e compared with last year’s assessment
Image: Nikita Kostrykin / Unsplash
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