According to a new United Nations report, the world is on track for 3°C of warming this century, far above the 1.5°C previously identified by scientists, despite current carbon-cutting policies and climate plans.
The Emissions Gap report, released on Monday (November 30), says maintaining the goal of limiting warming under the 2015 Paris Agreement target of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels depends on a rapid transformation away from fossil fuels toward renewable energy.
However, greenhouse gas emissions must fall 42% by 2030 to achieve that. Even in the most optimistic possibilities, the chance of now limiting warming to 1.5°C is only 14% with current emission levels.
"Present trends are racing our planet down a dead-end 3°C temperature rise," said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, "The emissions gap is more like an emissions canyon."
Temperature records have soared by a massive margin in 2023, leading to extreme weather events such as heatwaves, floods and drought and have caused death and destruction of livelihoods across the globe, significantly communities least contributing to the climate crisis.
If this was in response to the current rise of temperature up to 1.4°C, scientists have warned that there is far worse yet to come. At 3°C of warming, it is predicted the world would have already passed several, if not all, catastrophic points of no return.
“This is a failure of leadership, a betrayal of the vulnerable, and a massive missed opportunity,” said Guterres.
According to Guterres, countries must commit at Cop28, which will convene in the UAE on November 30 this year, to triple renewable energy capacity by 2030 and to phase out fossil fuels with a clear timeframe.
“Renewables have never been cheaper or more accessible. We know it is still possible to make the 1.5-degree limit a reality. It requires tearing out the poisoned root of the climate crisis: fossil fuels.”
Amidst such times, research shows that 20 countries, led by the United States, are responsible for nearly 90 per cent of the carbon dioxide (CO2) pollution threatened by new oil and gas field explosions planned between 2023 and 2050.
In September, the UK government gave the green light to developing the country’s largest untapped oil field, Rosebank. The other four global north countries, along with the UK, despite having greater economic means, flexibility, and moral responsibility to rapidly phase out fossil fuel production, are responsible for a majority of planned expansion from new oil and gas fields through 2050, up to 51%.
The UN warned earlier in November that the recent plans of expansion by the world’s fossil fuel producers would blow the planet’s carbon budget twice over when we should be working towards net zero.