UN praises governments for climate targets, but pledges ‘not enough to stop dangerous warming’

The United Nations officials said that climate pledges from over 140 countries across the world would not stop global temperatures from increasing more than the 2°C danger level. The intergovernmental organisation warns that carbon emissions will continue to grow worldwide, but the proposed climate plans by each country could make it more slowly than over the past two decades.

The UN has released its new assessment of the submitted pledges, showing that overall it would lead to less than 3°C of global temperature in the current century. The assessment covers the national climate plans, called Intended Nationally Determined Contributions, or INDCs, to limit climate change from 146 countries.

Officials of the UN acknowledged governments for submitting plans to fight their greenhouse gas emissions, the Guardian reported. They said that these INDCs would lead carbon emissions reduction “within reach.”

Governments are set to implement their new plans by 2020 when current commitments expire. The UN believes that INDCs would help countries to agree for a new global treaty on climate change at a conference in Paris in December.

“These national climate action plans represent a clear and determined down-payment on a new era of climate ambition from the global community of nations,” said Christiana Figueres, executive director of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. The submitted climate plans already cover about 86 percent of emissions around the world, according to the UN.

Figueres said that INDCs would limit the forecast temperature increase to around 2.7°C by 2100. Although the result is not enough, it is far lower than previous estimates of increase by four, five, or more degrees of warming, she added.

According to experts, the feared temperature increase of more than 2°C can lead to significant and dangerous climate impacts, mainly affecting the world's poor. The increase would potentially cause much more dangerous floods, droughts, heat waves, sea level rises and development of more intense storms.

The climate plans would still allow CO2 levels to grow in the atmosphere over the next 15 years. The UN said that there could be a 22 percent of increase in overall emissions in 2030, compared to 2010 levels. If the countries fulfil their climate plans, emissions will still continue to rise but at a slow state, experts said.

Despite the UN praising the effectiveness of the submitted climate plans, some of world’s poorest countries were not satisfied with the 2°C target. These nations, including those at low-lying islands at the Pacific, were believed to suffer the impacts of climate change.

They say that it would be effective to prevent their islands to be swamped by sea level rises if warming is limited to 1.5°C by 2100.

“Today’s analysis shows the urgent need to address the lack of ambition within the INDCs,” said Giza Gaspar-Martins, the Angolan diplomat who chairs the Least Developed Countries, or LDCs, who play a major role in the UN talks. “Current plans will only slow emissions by a third, which is clearly not enough to keep us within safe limits.”

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