Current climate commitments vs science

🌍🚨 The new 2024 Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) Synthesis Report came out day before yesterday, and our progress report as humanity is not good. The findings are stark: current national climate plans remain grossly insufficient to prevent catastrophic global heating. This must be a turning point towards more ambitious climate action. 🔍 Key Data: Emissions trajectory: Even if current NDCs are fully implemented, 2030 emissions are projected to reach 51.5 gigatonnes of CO2 equivalent—a reduction of only 2.6% from 2019 levels. 📉 IPCC’s benchmark (AR6): Greenhouse gas emissions must be cut 43% by 2030 and 60% by 2035, compared to 2019 levels, to limit global heating to 1.5°C. 🌡️ Every fraction of a degree avoided is crucial as climate disasters escalate with each increment. ✨ The ABC Test for New NDCs ✨: Ambitious targets covering all greenhouse gases and sectors to keep 1.5°C within reach. Broken down into sectoral commitments for clarity and accountability. Credible, with strong regulations, laws, and funding. 💡 Stronger NDCs can drive: Increased investment 💸 Economic growth and opportunity 📈 More jobs, better health 🏥 Cleaner, more secure energy ⚡ 🚨COP29 in Baku must translate the pledges from COP28 into real-world, real-economy results: Tripling renewables Delivering on adaptation goals Transitioning away from fossil fuels Scaling up finance to support developing nations and secure the global economy. 🌱 The Path Forward: The report confirms the last generation of NDCs set the stage for change. The next wave, due next year, must outline a clear roadmap to scale renewables, strengthen adaptation, and accelerate a global transition to low-carbon economies. The world is watching, and COP29 must deliver concrete outcomes that safeguard lives, livelihoods, and our planet. #ClimateAction #NDCs #COP29 #ClimateChange #Sustainability #NetZero

We're facing the greatest challenge humanity has ever faced, and we're not up to it (at all).   We should be massively reducing our CO2 emissions.   And yet, last year, we produced more GHG emissions and extracted more oil and gas than ever before.   The previous record? The year before, in 2022. And yet, to have any hope of staying below 1.5 degrees, we would have to reach net zero in 2040...   The UN estimates that based on current climate policies we will face global warming of 2.5-2.9°C this century.   But what do these figures mean?   👉 A warming of 2 degrees Celsius will lead to:    37% of the global population exposed to severe heat every 1 in 5 years.   ~0,5 meters sea level rise affecting 800 million people by 2050.   Multiplication of likelihood and intensity of wildfires.   7% reduction in maize harvests and 3 million tons decline in marine fisheries, putting millions of people at food risk.   16% of plants and 18% of insects losing half of their habitable area.   99% decline in coral reefs.   👉 And 3 degrees?   It would be so extreme that it becomes difficult to measure. But studies speak of:   Hundreds of millions of people exposed several days per year to life-threatening periods of high heat and humidity. +97% increase in area burned by wildfires in average Mediterranean summer.   Droughts lasting 10 months on average.   A quarter of the Earth’s species going extinct. ✅ The good news is that almost all of this is still avoidable.   But it requires to change EVERYTHING!   We must leave behind the belief that small incremental changes will suffice.    We need to change the rules of our economic system. "No matter what we sell, no matter the cost to the environment, all that matters is making more money for shareholders leads us straight to disaster": This cannot continue! We must stop believing in the fairytales of "green economic growth". Science is clear: More than 800 peer-reviewed studies show that we can't reduce our emissions fast enough while continuing to blindly grow our economies. We need to stop pointing the finger at emerging countries and start imposing radical changes in rich countries - which are the main contributors to the current crisis Indeed, the richest countries are directly responsible for half of the CO2 currently in the atmosphere, even though they account for only 12% of the world population.   We have to stop naively believing in the promises of multinationals, whose only goal is ever-increasing profits. 💚AND, most importantly:   We have to get away from this belief that we are powerless because we are alone.   Yes, individually we can't do much, but together, we have the POWER.   We can turn things around and create a desirable world for the greatest number. Sources: the Guardian, the New York Times, UN Climate Change, Nature Graph: the Guardian

Only a few days to go until COP28, and the world’s governments’ decarbonization commitments remain far off track. ✅ Good: More than 80% of global emissions are now covered by national net-zero targets—up from virtually zero a few years ago. ❌ Not good: Only a third have targets that are at least close to 1.5°C-compliant. ❌ Even worse: Only a mere 7% are also governed by adequately ambitious policies.   Even if all countries achieve their current decarbonization commitments, the world’s 10 largest emitters alone will overshoot their emissions budget by ~370 Gt CO2e until 2050 (and more thereafter)—alone almost doubling what the entire world is still allowed to emit under a 1.5°C pathway.   We need to do better. The largest emitters need to start reducing this decade—and move up their net zero targets closer to 2050. The US and Europe, who bear higher historical responsibility, need to make sure they live up to their targets and contribute more financially for bringing down emissions elsewhere.   For a broader perspective on the state of global climate action, see our latest report with the World Economic Forum Alliance of CEO Climate Leaders, “The State of Climate Action”, which you can read here: https://lnkd.in/eTfmPYih   #NetZero #COP28 #GlobalStocktake #GreenGrowthAtBCG Jens Burchardt, Trine Filtenborg de Nully, Galaad Préau

New UNEP emissions gap report highlights a "massive gap between rhetoric and reality" and calls for a "quantum leap" in ambition to deliver Paris goals, as the world is way off-track today. I cover the details over at @CarbonBrief: https://lnkd.in/gPT3nzw7 The report highlights that greenhouse gas emissions reached record levels in 2023, up 1.3% from 2022. It also shows how progress and ambition have “plateaued” in recent years, with relatively little of substance occurring since pledges made at COP26 in 2021. It finds that Current policies put the world on track for 2.9C of warming by 2100 – though this could be reduced to 2.4-2.6C, if all existing NDCs are met. This is a notable increase from the 2.7C current policy outcome in the prior 2023 report: This represents a bit of divergence from other estimates in the literature. Back in 2022 the three most prominent estimates agreed with a best estimate of ~2.6C to 2.7C warming under current policies. Today IEA is down to 2.4C and UNEP is up to 2.9C, a 0.5C gap. While the magnitude of the challenge is “indisputable”, there are “abundant opportunities for accelerating mitigation”, the report says. It finds that global emissions could be cut by 54% by 2030 and 72% by 2035 at a cost of less than $200 per tonne of CO2. This indicates that the gap between commitments and current policies is a result of a lack of policy support rather than more fundamental barriers to decarbonisation: https://lnkd.in/gB6xn4uW