The United Nations calls for speeding up before the end of COP26. States’ new climate commitments have only marginally improved humanity’s chances of curbing global warming, regretted the UN on Tuesday, November 9, calling for more ambition by the end of the conference. climate of Glasgow (United Kingdom).
About thirty countries have put new commitments on the table, in the short or long term, in particular Brazil and India, which has committed to carbon neutrality by 2070. Announcements that observers had often considered significant . “When you look at these new commitments, frankly, it’s the mountain that gave birth to a mouse”, according to the patron of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), Inger Andersen.
Published just before the start of COP26, UNEP’s annual baseline report predicted global warming “catastrophic” + 2.7 ° C by the end of the century compared to the pre-industrial era, or + 2.2 ° C taking into account the promises of carbon neutrality for 2050.
The forecasts updated Tuesday by UNEP do not cause any change in the temperature trajectory: still + 2.7 ° C by the end of the century. If we take into account the promises of carbon neutrality around the middle of the century from more than 70 states representing three quarters of global emissions, the trajectory shows a slight improvement: +2.1 ° C, against +2.2 ° vs. But these promises of carbon neutrality “are generally vague, generally not transparent, some speak of greenhouse gases and others only of C02, they are difficult to assess“, commented Inger Andersen.
Other estimates of temperature forecasts have been released in recent days. The most optimistic, from the International Energy Agency, evokes a hope of limiting global warming to +1.8 ° C if all short-term promises and carbon neutrality are respected. Another analysis of the Climate Action Tracker, published Tuesday, predicts a rise of + 2.4 ° C based on short-term goals.
All these reviews “demonstrate that there has been progress but that it is clearly not enough”, commented, Tuesday, the president of the COP26, Alok Sharma, who wants to be able to say with “credibility” at the end of this conference that the target of +1.5 ° C is “living”.