The United Nations have launched a Synthesis Report analysing the impact of the level of ambition from all climate plans submitted by December 2020. This is yet another stark warning that countries must immediately ramp up their climate ambition if they are serious about the Paris Agreement they committed to more than five years ago.
By the end of last year 47 parties including the EU, accounting for around 30% of global emissions, had delivered new plans as mandated under the Paris Agreement.
The United Nations report warns that with all current climate pledges, global emissions in 2030 will only be 1% lower than emissions in 2010.
To stay on track with the 1.5°C goal of the Paris Agreement, the 1.5°C Special report of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) made it clear that global greenhouse gas emissions should be halved by the end of this decade already.
Wendel Trio, Director of Climate Action Network (CAN) Europe said: “This new UN report is another stark warning that countries are not living up to the promises they made more than five years ago in Paris. As warming records and disastrous droughts, floodings and extreme weather events keep growing, reaching the Paris objective of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5°C becomes tougher and tougher. Nice words are no longer enough, we need to see governments take real action, implement and go beyond their weak pledges.”
Trio added: “As a historic emitter that has already used a high amount of the available carbon budget, the EU needs to make more stringent cuts than the rest of the world. Hence European countries must aim to achieve more reductions than the “at least 55%” 2030 net target, in order to bring down global emissions sufficiently and prevent worse impacts from happening. The new EU climate and energy legislation to be kicked-off this year must reflect the urgency to act against dangerous climate change and pave the way forward internationally.”
ENDS
Contact:
Nicolas Derobert, CAN Europe Head of communications, nicolas@caneurope.org, +32 483 62 18 88
Climate Action Network (CAN) Europe is Europe’s leading NGO coalition fighting dangerous climate change. With over 170 member organisations from 38 European countries, representing over 1.500 NGOs and more than 47 million citizens, CAN Europe promotes sustainable climate, energy and development policies throughout Europe.
