UN Environment Report & The 1.5c Target by Brianna Welsh

There is “no credible pathway to 1.5C in place”, the UN’s environment agency has said, and the failure to reduce carbon emissions means the only way to limit the worst impacts of the climate crisis is a “rapid transformation of societies”.

The UN environment report analyzed the gap between the CO2 cuts pledged by countries and the cuts needed to limit any rise in global temperature to 1.5C, the internationally agreed target. Progress has been “woefully inadequate” it concluded.

Current pledges for action by 2030, if delivered in full, would mean a rise in global heating of about 2.5C and catastrophic extreme weather around the world. A rise of 1C to date has caused climate disasters in locations from Pakistan to Puerto Rico.

Countries agreed at the Cop26 climate summit a year ago to increase their pledges. But with Cop27 ongoing, only a couple of dozen have done so and the new pledges would shave just 1% off emissions in 2030. Global emissions must fall by almost 50% by that date to keep the 1.5C target alive.

And just a few days ago, the International Energy Agency (IEA) released its latest World Energy Outlook. For the first time ever, there is no scenario that sees continued long-term growth of any fossil fuel, including natural gas.

Yet a successful transition means not only NOT building things but building a lot of the right things: clean energy supply. Without matching the fossil fuel decline with clean energy growth, the world will encounter major energy security challenges.