Climate plans fall far short, U.N. finds
Ahead of the climate summit in Glasgow, many countries including Argentina, Britain, Canada, much of the E.U., South Africa and the U.S. have upgraded pledges to cut planet-warming emissions by 2030.
But those latest plans to tackle climate change over the next decade are far from what’s needed to avert a dangerous rise in global temperatures, according to a United Nations report released on Tuesday. The new pledges make up just one-seventh of the cuts needed.
Were those promises met, the world would be on track to warm roughly 2.7 degrees Celsius by 2100, compared with preindustrial levels, the report found. That broadly aligns with what outside analyses have found. That much warming would drastically increase the risk of heat waves, droughts, flooding and wildfires across the globe in the years to come, scientists have warned.
- heat wave : 1. 장기간의 혹서 2. [기상] 열파(opp. cold wave), 열기
It is also unclear whether every country will live up to its pledges — the report found that many governments still haven’t put in place policies or laws to achieve their goals. Australia, for example, pledged a last-minute commitment to net-zero emissions by 2050. But its plan, which does not toughen emissions targets for 2030, makes that hard to achieve.
- Net Zero : 탄소 중립((배출량을 줄이고 대기 중 이산화탄소를 흡수하는 방법을 통해 인간의 활동에 의해 발생하는 온실 가스의 양을 0(제로)로 만들자는 목표))
Quotable: “The world has to wake up to the imminent peril we face as a species,” said Inger Andersen, the executive director of the U.N. Environment Program.