Thirty states have announced new commitments, but the trajectory of global temperatures will not be altered, warns the United Nations Program.
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The account is not there. The new climate commitments announced by the participants at COP26 would still lead to a warming of 2.7 ° C – or at best 2.1 ° C – taking into account the promises of carbon neutrality, according to the latest estimate of the ‘UN published Tuesday, November 9, during COP26.
Before the start of the Glasgow climate conference, the annual benchmark report of the United Nations Program (UNEP) warned against a “catastrophic” warming of + 2.7 ° C, or + 2.2 ° C by adding mid-century carbon neutrality targets. Since then, 33 countries have made new commitments, including Brazil, Argentina, and especially India, which has strengthened its emission reduction targets for 2030 and announced carbon neutrality for 2070.
Despite this, the new forecast changes only marginally. Current commitments from 152 countries would reduce emissions by an additional 4.8 gigatonnes of CO2 equivalent by 2030, compared to 0.7 gt in the previous estimate. The improvement is linked in particular to the new 2030 targets for Saudi Arabia and China. In terms of temperature trajectory, the world would still be heading towards 2.7 ° C by 2100, very far from the objectives of the Paris agreement to limit warming to well below + 2 ° C, if possible to + 1.5 ° C compared to the pre-industrial era.
By adding the new promises of carbon neutrality, the temperature rise could be limited to 2.1 ° C, or 0.1 ° C better than the previous estimate. But UNEP remains cautious due to the “lack of transparency of the promises of carbon neutrality” and the absence “a mechanism for reporting and a system of verification”. The Program also notes that “very few of the commitments for 2030 clearly put countries on a path to carbon neutrality ” and “achieving these carbon neutrality objectives remains uncertain”.