Why can earth's temperature rise 3.2 degrees before end of century?

Global greenhouse gas emissions must stop rising immediately and fall at a rate of 7.6 percent each year from 2020 to 2030 to have a chance of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, it has warned. the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), which insists that otherwise the challenge set by the Paris Climate Agreement signed in 2015 will not be met.

The nearly 3,000-page report states that human-caused CO emissions in 2019 were 59 gigatonnes, a 54 per cent increase compared to 1990. The UNEP Annual Emissions Gap Report, comes less than a week before the XXV Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, to be held from December 2 to 13 in Madrid and just over a month before the Paris Agreement comes into force in 2020.

The report on the 'gap', between what is necessary to curb climate change and what is committed, points out that "even" if all the current unconditional commitments under the Paris Climate Agreement are implemented, the planet's global temperature will rise by 3.2 degrees Celsius, which would lead to more destructive and longer-range climate impacts.

For this reason, the UNEP insists to the countries that the collective ambition “must increase more than five times the current levels to achieve the necessary cuts during the next decade to reach the objective of limiting the increase in global temperature to 1.5ºC.

The UNEP report indicates that greenhouse gas emissions have increased by 1.5 per cent each year in the last decade despite different warnings and calls for action. In fact, in 2018 total emissions reached 55.3 gigatons of CO2 equivalent. To return to the desired path, annual emissions in 2030 should be 15 gigatons of CO2 equivalent lower each year to limit the temperature increase to 2ºC and even 32 gigatons of CO2 lower to achieve the 1.5ºC target.

If things continue as they are now, temperatures, far from increasing 1.5ºC, could grow between 3.4 and 3.9 degrees Celsius by the end of this century, which will lead to destructive impacts. This translates into GHG emissions cut per year of 2.7 per cent each year between 2020 and 2030 for the 2°C challenge and 7.6 per cent per year for the 1.5°C targets.

“The UN climate experts were very clear when they published their report that warming of 1.5ºC, the next decade is decisive to cut emissions in half and thus avoid the worst impacts of climate change. The increase in the concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere is linked to the increase in temperatures and impacts”, declared Tatiana Nuño from the environmental organization Greenpeace following the publication of the report. “This COP25 must be the definitive springboard to increase climate ambition, it must close the Paris Agreement rule book and the states must give a clear message that they are prepared to assume more ambitious emission reduction goals during 2020 », adds the ecologist.

The Minister of Ecological Transition Teresa Ribera has stated, regarding this report, that it is "a new forceful warning that we cannot further delay climate action at all levels, both by governments, as well as by supranational entities and of the rest of the economic and social actors. It is urgent to align ourselves with the objectives of the Paris Agreement and raise our ambition. The UNEP report tells us that emissions should peak in 2020 and begin to decline rapidly from that date. The COP25 in Madrid must be a decisive milestone for countries to raise the ambition of their contributions against climate change in 2020, let us facilitate a more inclusive global climate action movement, which channels the necessary action to address this challenge”.

The UNEP, blunt, ensures that the technologies and the knowledge of the policies to cut emissions are known, but the transformation must begin with the G20 negotiations that add up to 78 per cent of the total emissions, but 15 of the G20 members do not agree. have committed to a goal of zero emissions.

“Our collective failure to act early and hard on climate change means that we will now need to cut emissions deeper, by 7 per cent each year if we want to cut them already in this next decade,” said UNEP Executive Director, Inger Andersen.

“This shows that countries cannot simply wait until the end of 2020, when new climate commitments are due, to step up action. They, the countries, and each city, region, company and individual person, must act now », she urged.

Likewise, he has said that it is necessary to quickly reduce emissions as much as possible in 2020 and then show new national contributions to quickly start the greatest transformation of economies and societies. “We need to compensate for the years in which we have been procrastinating”, Andersen has sentenced, insisting that if it is not done, it will not be possible to reach the 1.5ºC target before 2030.

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