All nations of the world had homework this year: submit new-and-improved plans to fight climate change. But the plans they handed in “have barely moved the needle” on reducing Earth’s future warming, a new United Nations report finds.
And a good chunk of that progress is counteracted by the United States’ withdrawal from the effort, the report adds.
The newest climate-fighting plans — mandated every five years by the 2015 Paris Agreement — shaves about three tenths of a degree Celsius (nearly six tenths of a degree Fahrenheit) off a warming future compared with the projections a year ago.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration policies, which range from rolling back environmental regulations to hindering green energy projects, will add back a tenth of a degree of warming, Tuesday’s U.N. Environment Program’s Emissions Gap report says.
“Every tenth of a degree has ramifications on communities, on ecosystems around the world. It is particularly important for those vulnerable communities and ecosystems that are already being impacted,″ said Adelle Thomas, vice chair of a separate U.N. scientific panel that calculates climate impacts. ”It matters in heat waves. It matters in ocean heat waves and the destruction of coral reefs. It matters long-term when we think about sea level rise. ″
Global average temperature increase is mainly caused by the release of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, which happens when fuels like oil, gas and coal are burned. So the plans that countries turn in must detail how, and how fast, they will cut emissions of such gases.
Within the next decade, Earth is likely to blow past 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since the mid 1800s, which is the internationally agreed-upon goal made in Paris. If nations do as they promise in their plans, the planet will warm 2.3 to 2.5 degrees Celsius (4.1 to 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit), the report calculates.
Current policies put the world on path for 2.8 degrees Celsius (5 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming, providin