The world is going to blow past its most stringent climate goal in less than a quarter century unless the political will erupts to act faster and more directly to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
That will be the key message in a new report by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, to be released today.
The report is to be a scientific blueprint for how the world can meet its climate change targets. However it’s expected to show that right now the world is on track to warm up by 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, by 2040.
The world is currently warming up at about 0.2 C each decade, and has already warmed by more than 1 C compared to the mid-19th century.
The 2015 Paris climate change agreement set a goal to reduce emissions by the end of this century enough to keep the world from warming up more than 2 C compared to pre-industrial times. But there was also a stronger goal to aim for 1.5 C.
Next year the signatories to the Paris agreement are supposed to take stock of progress in meeting their national emissions goals.
The report comes just days after German environmental non-profit Urgewald published its latest update on the world’s addiction to coal. That report says there are 1,380 new coal plants being planned or already in development in 59 countries around the world. If they’re all built, the amount of electricity produced from coal will grow by one-third.
Coal is considered the dirtiest source of power, with greenhouse gas emissions nearly twice that of natural gas.
