Governments around the world face a conundrum. Virtually none are on track to meet their Paris climate commitments. That includes the United States, which committed to cut its emissions at least 50% below 2005 levels by 2030 but is only on track for 32-43% cuts by 2030 based on current policies.
And many of those policies, like the clean energy incentives passed in the Inflation Reduction Act – the landmark 2022 climate law – could be rolled back by the incoming Republican administration and Congress, leaving the U.S. even further short of its climate targets. President-elect Trump has pledged to once again withdraw the United States from the Paris climate accord, which would mean that the country’s involvement in international climate agreements and finance contributions will also cease.
The United Nations Environment Program’s latest annual emissions gap report, ominously titled “No more hot air … please!” concluded that in order to meet their Paris climate commitments, governments “must deliver a quantum leap in ambition in tandem with accelerated mitigation action in this decade.”
“Nations must accelerate action now, show a massive increase in ambition in the new pledges and then deliver urgently with policies and implementation,” Inger Andersen, executive director of the United Nations Environment Program, wrote in the foreword to the report. “If they do not, the Paris Agreement target of holding global warming to 1.5°C will be dead within a few years and 2°C will take its place in the intensive care unit.”
The Paris target was established to minimize the growing risks and damages that countries are already experiencing in today’s world – which has warmed by about 1.3°C – like extreme weather events and rising ocean levels inundating coastlines. Every additional fraction of a degree of global warming worsens those threats.
To prevent the Paris target from slipping out of reach, governments around the world will have to commit to do more to curb carbon pollution and pass additional climate policies to fulfill those pledges. Fortunately, the United Nations reports that there are no technological barriers preventing these goals from being met. Sufficient affordable clean technology solutions exist to reduce emissions at a rate consistent with meeting the Paris targets.
But government actions so far have failed to deploy those solutions at a sufficiently rapid rate, and the United States’ expected climate withdrawal will leave an even larger emissions gap for the rest of the world to fill.
Insufficient climate progress so far
On the bright side, global climate pollution may be on the verge of peaking, ending the inexorable rise in carbon emissions since humans started burning large quantities of fossil fuels during the Industrial Revolution over 200 years ago.
The bad news is that according to the United Nations report, current government policies are only sufficient to freeze human climate pollution at today’s levels in the coming years, whereas a path consistent with meeting the Paris target would require drastic additional cuts by 2030.
And according to the report and other analyses, current policies likely put the world on a very dangerous path toward somewhere between 2.5°C and 3°C global warming by 2100. Were every country to boost those policies enough to meet their 2030 climate commitments, the global warming path by 2100 would likely shift to between 2.4°C and 2.6°C.
Both scenarios put the world on track for well above the Paris target of limiting global warming to well below 2°C and preferably close to 1.5°C.
Projected climate pollution through 2035 and global warming pathways by 2100 under current policies (dark blue), unconditional Paris commitments, or NDCs (lighter blue), conditional NDCs that depend on increased international financing (lightest blue), and 2°C and 1.5°C scenarios (red). Created by Carbon Brief based on data from the emissions gap report.
Over 100 countries have also made commitments to reach net-zero emissions, in most cases by the year 2050. Meeting those pledges would likely limit global warming to between 1.7°C and 2°C, consistent with the Paris targets. But failing to meet shorter-term commitments like the 2030 pledges would make it more difficult for countries to meet future net zero pledges.
“If action in line with 2°C or 1.5°C pathways were to start in 2024, then global emissions would need to be reduced by an average of 4 and 7.5 per cent every year until 2035, respectively,” the emissions gap report notes. “If enhanced action that goes beyond current unconditional [commitments] is delayed until 2030, then the required annual emission reductions rise to an average of 8 per cent and 15 per cent to limit warming to 2°C or 1.5°C, respectively.”
While delayed action would make it more difficult to meet climate targets, an interdisciplinary 2022 study found that various social, political, and technological feedbacks could act to rapidly accelerate climate pollution reductions after 2030, so it remains within the realm of possibility despite recent political events.
How governments can accelerate climate action
Many climate solutions are readily available and affordable. The emissions gap finds that “emission reduction potential based on existing technologies and at costs below US$200 per ton of carbon dioxide equivalent remains sufficient to bridge the emissions gap in 2030 and 2035.” Climate damage costs are similarly estimated at around $200 per ton of carbon dioxide, and so by reducing those climate emissions and damages, deploying solutions below this cost would save governments money.
Most of those cheap solutions come in the form of deploying more solar and wind power, planting more trees, and better managing forests, for example by using tree harvesting practices that minimize the disturbance and carbon release of the surrounding forest and soils.
But accelerating their implementation “will require overcoming formidable policy, governance, institutional and technical barriers,” notes the report, “as well as an unprecedented increase in the support provided to developing countries.” And that international climate financial support will now likely need to compensate for the withdrawal of the world’s largest economy.
Overview of solutions that could reduce global climate pollution 54% by 2030 and 72% by 2035 at less than $200 per ton. “AFOLU” refers to agriculture, forestry, and other land use. Source: emissions gap report.
In its new energy transition report, analytical firm Wood Mackenzie suggested that to accelerate climate solutions, governments could reform permitting systems to expedite approvals of large-scale infrastructure projects, such as massive power lines to connect wind turbines in the Plains states to coastal cities. Governments could also deploy power grid-enhancing technologies like sensors to monitor weather conditions and support more research and development spending on emerging technologies.
Another research organization, the World Resources Institute, published a five-point plan recommending how governments can improve their next-generation climate commitments. These include setting more ambitious targets for 2035, reducing both food waste and meat consumption in diets, and ensuring that government agencies prioritize climate solutions in their rulemaking.
Overall, the likely withdrawal of the United States from international climate negotiations will leave a leadership void that could be filled by other powers like China and the European Union, as well as individual states like California. China in particular could view America’s withdrawal as an opportunity to dominate the ongoing shift to a global green economy. But governments will need to set significantly stronger climate commitments to overcome the withdrawal of the world’s second-largest polluting country and begin to close the widening emissions gap.