LONDON: Pledges made by countries to cut their carbon emissions ahead of a crunch climate summit in Paris later this year will delay the world passing the threshold for dangerous global warming by just two years, according to a new analysis.
The research, led by a former lead author on the UN’s climate science panel, found that the submissions so far by 36 countries to the UN would likely delay the world passing the threshold until 2038, rather than 2036 without the carbon cuts.
However, more than 150 countries have yet to submit their carbon pledges despite a deadline of the end of March. While most are relatively small emitters, commitments by big polluters such as India could significantly change the picture.
The analysis for the Guardian by the non-profit Climate Analytics comes as climate negotiators from nearly 200 countries meet in Bonn and academics warned the agreement hoped for in Paris would not keep temperatures to UN’s target of holding temperature rises below 2C above pre-industrial levels.
None of the pledges, known in UN jargon as Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs), were found to be in line with the 2C limit, when a fair global distribution of emissions cuts was factored into countries’ offers.
Pledges made by Russia and Canada would be consistent with potentially catastrophic warming of between 3-4C if the pledges were matched with a similar level of ambition globally, according to the research.
“The action and ambition we have seen to date is far from sufficient and unless it is rapidly accelerated, the difficulties of limiting warming below 2C will be extreme,” said Dr Bill Hare, the founder of Climate Analytics and a former Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) lead author.
