Climate Goal in Trouble
Air Date: Week of November 1, 2024

The UN says the current plans of nations to reduce global warming emissions would result in a destructive three degrees Celsius of warming above pre-industrial levels, far higher than the 1.5 C goal set by the Paris Climate Agreement. Bob Berwyn of Inside Climate News joins Host Jenni Doering to discuss the widening gap between these plans and the ambition that’s needed to prevent catastrophic climate impacts.

…

As the world prepares for the UN climate treaty summit COP29 in Azerbaijan, a trio of scientific reports is warning that we are headed for a destructive three degrees Celsius of warming above pre-industrial levels. That’s a far cry from the 1.5 degrees Celsius goal set by the Paris Climate Agreement in 2015. With 1.3 degrees of average warming so far, our planetary fever is already spawning more catastrophic storms, heat waves, and sea level rise. To meet the Paris goal, the world needs to cut global warming emissions by nearly half by 2030, and so far, we are way off track. The continued burning of fossil fuels and the destruction of forests now has global warming gas emissions higher than ever, and the current plans of the 198 nations in the treaty add up to only a paltry reduction of 2.6 percent. Bob Berwyn who follows climate negotiations for our media partner, Inside Climate News, is here and he explains what’s required to meet Paris.

BERWYN: The annual reductions needed now are about 7.5% a year, and we're very far away from that. And each year that it doesn't drop, that percentage cut gets bigger and bigger, so we're sort of slipping away. And actually, one of the most interesting things in the three reports was a comment from senior United Nations officials who acknowledged, one of the first times that I've seen it in writing from the UN, that the 1.5-degree goal may not be reachable.

DOERING: Well, this 2.5% projected emissions reduction by 2030 it's where the world is headed collectively. But to what extent are certain countries pulling more weight here? Who is actually on track to make the most impact?

…