Not One Nation On Track For 2030 Climate Targets; Methane Emissions Hit New Record High

[hatrack]

Thursday’s report on the emissions gap — the gulf between national plans to reduce carbon pollution and the actual cuts needed to avert catastrophic warming — found that countries’ strongest climate pledges put the Earth on a path to warm by a dangerous 2.4 degrees Celsius (4.3 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of the century. And few nations have implemented the policies needed to meet even these lackluster targets, the report said. “Global and national climate commitments are falling pitifully short,” U.N. Secretary General António Guterres said in a video message. “We must close the emissions gap before climate catastrophe closes in on us all.”

In the face of the war in Ukraine, the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and widespread economic upheaval, the emissions gap report shows, nations have made little progress toward meeting the Glasgow climate summit goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels. “The world has got to learn that crises will continue, and we can’t afford to lose our attention,” said Inger Andersen, executive director of the U.N. environment program, which oversees the report. Unless people take dramatic action to transform economies and eliminate fossil fuels, Andersen warned, humanity faces a hellish future that will make today’s climate disasters seem mild by comparison.

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Another study released Wednesday by the World Meteorological Organization found that methane emissions are rising faster than ever before, raising questions about humanity’s ability to limit the greenhouse gas that is 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide in the near term. In its annual “Countdown” report on the health effects of climate change, the prominent medical journal the Lancet warned that “overreliance on fossil fuels could lock in a fatally warmer future.” Even as rising temperatures put billions of people at risk from unbearable heat, violent disasters and surging infectious disease, the report said that many governments spend more of their national budgets on fossil fuel subsidies than on public health measures.

Meanwhile, a new report by seven climate nonprofits looked at 40 indicators of climate progress and showed that not a single one is on track for the world to meet its 2030 targets. Public financial support for clean energy and other climate projects is one-tenth of what it needs to be, the “State of Climate Action” report found. Efforts to phase out coal need to happen six times faster. Fossil gas is on track to become an even greater source of electricity by the end of the decade, even as scientists say its role has to shrink.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/10/27/emissions-climate-change-temperature-rise/

[Hugh_Lebowski]

1. The planet is well and truly fvcked at this point (nt)