We’ve had our chance to make incremental changes. This time is now over.”

We are currently heading towards 2.4 to 2.6 degrees of warming by the end of this century. This is well above the two-degree limit of warming that UN states describe as dangerous. Only if we manage to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent in the next eight years will we have a good chance of staying below two degrees. However, we are actually only heading towards a 5 to 10 percent reduction in emissions.

To stay below 1.5 degrees of warming – we’re already at 1.1 – greenhouse gas emissions must be cut by 2030 by 45 percent. “A huge task, some might say impossible,” said UNEP Lady Inger Andersen In a press release. “But we have to try.”

lost year

A “lost year,” the United Nations Environment Program calls the time that has passed since the 2021 Glasgow Climate Summit. Although the participating countries still formally pledged to “review and strengthen climate agreements”, they “unfortunately failed to comply with them”. The additional climate promises made by the 166 participating countries to the UN Environment Program do not add up to an additional 1 per cent reduction in emissions.

The Paris climate goals can only be achieved through rapid and unprecedented changes in the energy supply, industry, food sector, transportation, construction and the financial sector, says the United Nations Environment Program in no uncertain terms. We have had the opportunity to make incremental changes. “That time is now over,” Andersen said. “Only a profound transformation of our economy and society can save us from mounting climate catastrophes.”

The UN says such a shift would require “at least” $4-6 trillion a year. Next, banks and governments have to walk away from whatever is there. For example, where this has not yet happened, CO₂to impose taxes.

Giant Bombers

China, India, Russia, Turkey, Brazil and Saudi Arabia in particular lag, according to figures released by the United Nations Environment Program on Thursday. This is a problem because many of these countries are giant emitters. China alone emits nearly 15 billion tons of carbon dioxide₂ for greenhouse gases. This is nearly four times what it is in the entire European Union, and more than a quarter of the world’s emissions.

Europe still does well: a steady decline in CO2₂Emissions, both per capita and in absolute terms. The European Union is approaching its ultimate goal of zero emissions by 2050. Canada, Japan, Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, under the leadership of Joe Biden, are on track to achieve their long-term goal of a zero-carbon economy in thirty years.

But whether it was in time is questionable. In recent years, scientists have seen more and more indications that climate change is already rapidly becoming more dangerous above one temperature. For example, a review article last month warned that such a rise in temperature could be enough to trigger many irreversible climate catastrophes, from melting ice in parts of Greenland to instability in West Antarctica.

Such disasters will take thousands of years to unfold, but once they begin, they are likely to be unstoppable. The last time the weather was much warmer than warmer on Earth, 125,000 years ago, sea level eventually rose 6 to 9 metres.

methane record

There are currently 416 carbon dioxide in the air₂parts per million, one and a half times what it was before the Industrial Revolution. Additional greenhouse gases account for 80 percent of the 50 percent increase in the amount of energy sequestered on Earth since 1990, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) calculated Wednesday in another disturbing annual report.

The World Meteorological Organization is also seeing another sharp increase in methane. It is true that this greenhouse gas degrades faster than carbon dioxide₂, but has a greenhouse effect about 24 times stronger. Satellites have been measuring more and more methane in the atmosphere for fifteen years, but why this is still a mystery.

One concern is that the methane comes from the tropics wetlands or rice fields. This could indicate a self-reinforcing effect: more methane means more warming, and more warming means more decomposition of organic residues in swamps and paddy fields, which in turn releases more methane.

Wrong way

The continued rise in greenhouse gas emissions “shows that we are heading in the wrong direction,” Petteri Taalas, head of the World Meteorological Organization, said in a statement. Statement concerned.

“As a most important and urgent priority, we must reduce CO2₂Emissions that are the main driver of climate change and associated extreme weather, and that will affect the climate for thousands of years, through the loss of polar ice, the warming of the oceans and the rise in sea levels.”