Climate plans fail to curb dangerous warming, UN says ahead of COP

Only 64 countries have submitted new plans to reduce carbon emissions, the UN says, although all are due to do so before next month’s COP30 summit.

Taken together, these national pledges will fail to keep the world from warming by more than 1.5C, a key threshold for very dangerous levels of climate change.

Although the UN review shows progress in curbing carbon emissions over the next decade, the projected decline is not enough to stop temperatures exceeding this global goal.

The report highlights the scale of the task facing world leaders as they head to Belem in northern Brazil next week for the COP30 climate summit.

Ten years after the signing of the Paris Climate Pact in 2015, countries’ efforts to limit rising global temperatures are under new scrutiny.

Each signatory agreed to present a new plan to reduce carbon emissions every five years, covering the next decade.

But only 64 countries managed to introduce a new commitment this year, despite many extensions to the deadline. They account for about 30% of global emissions.

In addition, the UN review includes statements from China and the EU on their future plans made at Climate Week in New York in September.

Taken together, the efforts mean global carbon dioxide emissions should fall by about 10% by 2035.

However, scientists say such a drop is not enough to keep the rise in temperatures below 1.5C.

Keeping this goal alive will require drastic cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, up to 57% by 2035. according to the UN last year.

“This report shows that we are moving in the right direction, but too slowly,” said Lawrence Tubiana, chief executive of the European Climate Foundation, often cited as a key architect of the Paris Agreement.

“It is essential to recognize the missing national commitments and to confront the persistent gap between ambition and actual delivery.”

The 1.5C limit agreed in Paris has long been considered the threshold of very dangerous warming.

In 2018, scientists outlined the huge benefits to the world of keeping the rise below 1.5C compared to allowing it to rise to 2C. A shift to 1.5C includes more frequent and intense heat waves and storms, increased damage to coral reefs and increasing threats to human health and livelihoods, UN scientists said.

however this limit was breached in 2024 for a whole year for the first time.

UN leaders increasingly accept that the threshold will be permanently exceeded by early 2030 at current rates.

“One thing is now clear: we will not be able to keep global warming below 1.5C in the next few years,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told delegates at a meeting of the World Meteorological Organization last week.

“Exceeding is now inevitable. Which means we will have a period, more or less, of higher or lower intensity, above 1.5C in the coming years.”

However, the UN wants to stress that there are some significant green shoots in the new report that give hope.

Many more countries are expected to submit plans as their leaders gather for COP30 in Belem, Brazil.

Big carbon producers like India and Indonesia have yet to reveal their carbon plans. They are likely to do so during COP30 and this could have a significant impact on the overall projections for 2035.

Some countries are also likely to cut faster and more deeply than they have promised, experts say.

“It’s actually perfectly reasonable to look at China,” said Todd Stern, a former US special envoy for climate change.

“They will specify a certain number that is not large and then exceed it, and China does this often.”

The UN says it is confident that global emissions are likely to peak and begin to decline in the next few years, for the first time since the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century.

They say the plans in place show clear steps towards net-zero emissions by mid-century. Net zero means balancing the amount of planet-warming “greenhouse” gases produced by human activities with the amount that is actively removed from the atmosphere.

One important factor is that the cuts estimated by the UN include the planned US pledge presented to President Biden.

While President Donald Trump has said he will withdraw from the Paris accord, that process is not yet complete, so the UN is keeping US plans in its calculations even if they don’t go ahead as planned.