UN says nations’ climate change pledges fall short
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PLANS by 34 nations for fighting climate change beyond 2020 would put the world on track for warming well above the limits agreed with the United Nations, experts said yesterday.
The United States, 28-nation European Union, Russia, Mexico, Switzerland, Norway and Gabon have so far submitted strategies to the UN, meant as the building blocks of a global deal to be agreed in December at a summit in Paris.
“We regret that so few ... have been submitted,” said Miguel Arias Canete, European Climate Action and Energy Commissioner.
The national plans cover about 30 percent of world emissions.
March 31 was a first, informal deadline for plans, or Intended Nationally Determined Contributions, that are meant to help slow the effects of climate change. Most nations are waiting to submit their plans.
The Climate Action Tracker, compiled by scientists, said pledges so far put the world on track for mean temperatures in the year 2100 of 3 to 4 degrees Celsius higher than they were in pre-industrial times. That is well above a UN goal of a maximum 2-degree rise.
“Hopefully, there can be a dynamic to increase ambition,” said Niklas Hoehne, a partner of the New Climate Institute, which helps compile the CAT.
CAT gave Russia an “inadequate” rating and assessed others as “medium.” It said reports that Japan was considering cuts of only 20 percent by 2030 would also be “inadequate.”
Russia’s goal is to limit emissions to 25 to 30 percent below 1990 levels by 2030. But its emissions were 32 percent below the 1990 benchmark in 2012, a legacy of the collapse of Soviet-era smokestack industries, meaning a rise by 2030.
Other INDCs use varying yardsticks that complicate the process of comparison.
Washington plans cuts of up to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025, for instance, while the EU promises cuts of 40 percent from 1990 levels by 2030.
UN climate chief Christiana Figueres said she expects INDCs covering 80 percent of world emissions by October 1, allowing an overview before Paris.
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