Progress in fight against climate change not nearly enough

NEW YORK • The world's countries have begun to make meaningful progress in the fight against climate change over the past decade, new data shows, thanks to a rapid expansion of clean energy.

Yet the planet is still on track for dangerous levels of warming in the years ahead unless those efforts accelerate rapidly.

As world leaders gather in Glasgow, Scotland, for a pivotal UN climate summit this week, the focus will be on how much hotter the Earth will get and how to keep that number as small as possible.

Humans have warmed the planet by 1.1 deg C since pre-industrial times, largely by burning coal, oil and natural gas for energy and by cutting down forests, which help absorb the planet-warming emissions from fossil fuel use.

Humanity is already paying a high price: This year alone, blistering heat waves have killed hundreds of people in the Pacific North-west, floods devastated Germany and China, and wildfires raged out of control in Siberia, Turkey and California.

Scientists say that every additional fraction of a degree of warming will exacerbate extreme weather and other risks around the globe. In 2014, research group Climate Action Tracker estimated the world was on track for nearly 4 deg C of warming by 2100, compared with pre-industrial levels.

One assessment by the World Bank explored the risks, such as cascading global crop failures, and bluntly concluded that 4 deg C warming "simply must not be allowed to occur".

This year, however, Climate Action Tracker painted a more optimistic picture, because countries have started doing more to restrain their emissions.

Current policies put the world on pace for roughly 2.9 deg C of warming by 2100. That is a best estimate; the potential range is between 2.1 deg C and 3.9 deg C.

Professor Niklas Hohne, a German climatologist and founding partner of NewClimate Institute, which created the Climate Action Tracker, said: "You can say that progress has been too slow, that it's still not enough, and I agree with all that. But we do see real movement."

In 2015, 195 nations signed the Paris climate agreement, which for the first time required every country to submit a plan for curbing emissions. While the plans were voluntary, they helped spur new actions: The European Union tightened caps on industrial emissions.

China and India ramped up renewable energy. Egypt scaled back subsidies for fossil fuels. Indonesia began cracking down on illegal deforestation.

A decade ago, solar panels, wind turbines and electric vehicles were often seen as niche technologies, too expensive for widespread use. But their costs have plummeted. Today, wind and solar power are the cheapest new source of electricity in most markets.

Electric vehicle sales are setting records.

At the same time, coal power, a major source of emissions, has begun to wane. After the Paris Agreement, one recent study found, 76 per cent of proposals for new coal plants have been cancelled.

Between 2000 and 2010, global emissions rose 3 per cent per year on average. But between 2011 and 2019, emissions grew more slowly, at roughly 1 per cent per year.

The International Energy Agency now projects that global carbon dioxide emissions could potentially peak by the mid-2020s, then start gradually declining.

That would put the world on pace to warm a bit less than 3 deg C by 2100. However, scientists warn that the number is not something to celebrate. Consider the vast ice sheets atop Greenland and West Antarctica, which together hold enough water to raise global sea levels nearly 12.2m and sink many of the world's great coastal cities.

As governments have awakened to the danger, they have vowed to do more. But so far, their promises often just exist on paper.

Many pledges are not yet supported by concrete policies, and countries are not all on track to meet them.

One recent study by the Rhodium Group found that even if the Biden administration implemented a sweeping package of climate measures - including hundreds of billions of dollars in clean energy spending that remains stalled in Congress - and individual states adopted tougher rules of their own, the United States would barely be able to stay on track to meet its target.

And even as humanity has chipped away at the climate problem over the past decade, scientists have made progress, too.

In the years since the Paris Agreement, a slew of studies have found that 2 deg C of warming is vastly more harmful than 1.5 deg C.

That extra half-degree sounds small, but it could mean tens of millions more people worldwide being exposed to life-threatening heat waves, water shortages and coastal flooding.

A half-degree may mean the difference between a world with coral reefs and Arctic summer sea ice, and a world without them.

How much humans have warmed the planet since pre-industrial times, largely by burning coal, oil and natural gas for energy and by cutting down forests, which help absorb the planet-warming emissions created by fossil fuel use.

Amount of warming that current policies put the world on pace for by 2100. That is a best estimate; the potential range is between 2.1 deg C and 3.9 deg C.

Rise in global emissions per year on average between 2000 and 2010. But between 2011 and 2019, emissions grew more slowly, at roughly 1 per cent per year.

The United Nations warned last Tuesday that the latest round of climate pledges that countries submitted before Glasgow would collectively produce just one-seventh of the additional emissions cuts needed this decade to help limit total global warming to 1.5 deg C.

"The pathway is extremely narrow," said Mr Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency. "We really don't have much time left to shift course."

NYTIMES