2/26/2024 0 Comments Nasa graphic teeLast year, US President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act, the largest climate investment in the country's history, and the EU has set out an ambitious plan to massively scale up clean energy.īut there’s a “long way to go,” Höhne said. In the US and EU, levels of planet-heating pollution have been declining for years as both amp up the ambition of their climate policies. The “good thing about China,” he said, “is they have the power and the will to pay to make change.” China is developing renewable energy faster than anywhere in the world, but is also rapidly adding new coal power. ![]() The country is a paradox, said Pierre Friedlingstein, a climate professor at the University of Exeter in the UK. ![]() China also just committed, alongside the US, to ramping up renewable energy and reducing all greenhouse gas emissions. But its emissions have started to plateau, and are projected to peak by 2025, according to Climate Action Tracker. Planet-heating pollution in China soared as the country relied heavily on coal to grow its economy. The goals of the world’s biggest climate polluters tell very different stories. “The trouble is that we've run out of lead time and now we're having to turn the ship very, very quickly.”Ī look at the data reveals why it’s proving so hard. The task ahead is comparable to “turning around a huge tanker,” she said - it cannot be done immediately or easily. For coral reefs, it’s the difference between “wiping them off the face of the Earth” and managing to hang onto some of them, Fransen said. And for some ecosystems, it’s a death sentence. The difference between 1.5 and 2 degrees means hundreds of millions more lives will be at risk from extreme weather events. ![]() “Every fraction of a degree makes a very big difference in impacts on the ground,” said Taryn Fransen, director of science, research, and data for the World Resources Institute's Global Climate Program. It's really, totally off,” said Niklas Höhne, a climate scientist at the non-profit the NewClimate Institute who works on the Climate Action Tracker.Ī growing chorus of scientists has warned the 1.5 target may now be dead, but that doesn’t mean there’s less urgency, they say. Projected global warming is much lower than it was a decade ago.īut the pace is still far too slow. Years of international climate action have put the world on the right path. The world is heading toward nearly 3 degrees of global warming, even if current climate policies are met, the United Nations has warned.Īs the pressure increases on countries - especially those in the rich world - to rapidly scale up their climate ambitions, here’s a look at where we are now and how we got here.Īt COP28, countries will judge their progress toward the Paris Agreement’s pledge to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius, with the ambition of limiting it to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |