How governments can address failed Paris climate pledges » Yale Climate Connection

Governments around the world face a conundrum. In fact, none have been able to meet their Paris climate commitments. These include the United States, which has pledged to reduce emissions by at least 50% by 2030 compared to 2005 levels, but will only achieve a 32-43% reduction by 2030 under current policies.

Many of these policies, such as the clean energy incentives passed in the landmark 2022 climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act, may be eliminated by the incoming Republican administration and Congress, putting the United States further short of its climate goals. President-elect Trump has promised to withdraw the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement again, which means that the United States will also stop participating in international climate agreements and funding donations.

The United Nations Environment Programme’s latest annual emissions gap report, titled “No more empty words, please!” concludes that to meet Paris climate pledges, governments “must accelerate mitigation action this decade while meeting ambitious targets A huge leap forward.”

“Countries must now move faster, show greater ambition in new commitments, and then urgently deliver on policy and implementation,” Inger Andersen, executive director of the United Nations Environment Program, wrote in the report’s foreword. “If they don’t, The Paris Agreement target of limiting global warming to 1.5°C will expire in a few years, and the 2°C target will take its place in intensive care.”

The Paris targets were developed to minimize the growing risks and damages that countries are already experiencing in today's world (with global warming of about 1.3°C), such as extreme weather events and rising sea levels that inundate coastlines. These threats worsen with every increase in global warming.

To prevent the Paris targets from being missed, governments around the world must commit to doing more to curb carbon pollution and deliver on those commitments through more climate policies. Fortunately, the United Nations reports that there are no technical barriers to achieving these goals. There are enough affordable clean technology solutions available to reduce emissions at a rate consistent with the Paris targets.

But government action has so far failed to deploy these solutions fast enough, and the U.S.’s expected climate exit will leave a larger emissions gap for the rest of the world.

Climate progress so far is not enough

On the bright side, global climate pollution may be about to peak, ending the inevitable rise in carbon emissions that began more than 200 years ago when humans began burning massive amounts of fossil fuels during the Industrial Revolution.

The bad news is that current government policies are only enough to freeze human climate pollution at today's levels in the next few years, and significant additional cuts will be needed in 2030 to meet the Paris targets, according to a United Nations report.

According to the report and other analyses, current policies could put the world on a very dangerous path, with global warming reaching 2.5°C to 3°C by 2100. To meet its 2030 climate commitments, the global warming path is likely to shift to between 2.4°C and 2.6°C by 2100.

Both scenarios put the world on track to achieve well above the Paris targets of limiting global warming to well below 2°C, and ideally closer to 1.5°C.

More than 100 countries have also pledged to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 in most cases. But if short-term commitments such as 2030 cannot be met, it will be harder for countries to meet future net zero commitments.

The Emissions Gap Report states: “If actions consistent with a 2°C or 1.5°C pathway were taken from 2024, global emissions would need to be reduced by an average of 4% and 7.5% per year respectively by 2035.” “If intensified action goes beyond the current unconditional scope [commitments] If postponed to 2030, the annual emissions reductions required to limit warming to 2°C or 1.5°C would rise to an average of 8% and 15% respectively.

While delayed action will make it harder to meet climate goals, a 2022 interdisciplinary study found that a variety of social, political and technological feedbacks could quickly accelerate climate pollution reductions after 2030, making it even more difficult to achieve climate pollution despite recent political event, but it's still within the realm of possibility.

How governments can accelerate climate action

Many climate solutions are readily available and affordable. The Emissions Gap found that “based on existing technology and a cost of less than $200 per ton of CO2, the emission reduction potential remains sufficient to close the emissions gap between 2030 and 2035.” Likewise, the cost of climate damage is estimated to be around $200 per ton of CO2 , so deploying solutions below this cost will save governments money by reducing climate emissions and damage.

Most of these cheap solutions come in the form of deploying more. Solar and wind energy, planting more trees and better managing forests, for example by using tree harvesting methods that minimize disturbance and carbon release to surrounding forests and soils.

But speeding up implementation “will require overcoming significant policy, governance, institutional and technical barriers and an unprecedented increase in support for developing countries,” the report said. And international climate finance support may now be needed to make up for the withdrawal of the world’s largest economy.

In its New Energy Transition report, analytics firm Wood Mackenzie suggested that to accelerate climate solutions, governments could reform the permitting system to speed up the approval of large infrastructure projects, such as connecting wind turbines in plains states to large transmission lines in coastal cities. electric wire. Governments can also deploy grid-enhancing technologies such as sensors to monitor weather conditions and support more research and development spending on emerging technologies.

Another research group, the World Resources Institute, has released a five-point plan suggesting how governments can improve their climate commitments for the next generation. These include setting more ambitious targets for 2035 to reduce food waste and meat consumption in diets and ensuring government agencies prioritize climate solutions when setting rules.

Overall, a potential U.S. withdrawal from international climate negotiations would leave a leadership void that could be filled by other major powers such as China and the European Union, as well as individual states such as California. China, in particular, could see the U.S. withdrawal as an opportunity to lead the global transition to a green economy. But governments need to set stronger climate commitments to overcome the retreat of the world's second-biggest polluter and start closing the widening emissions gap.