UN report sees emissions at peak

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Lerato Khumalo

climate

UN report sees emissions at peak

Updated 10/24/2024 – 4:01 p.mReading time: 3 minutes

Enlarge the imageSteam and exhaust gases from a factory chimney (archive image) (Source: Patrick Pleul/dpa/dpa-bilder)

In a few weeks, the UN climate conference in Baku, Azerbaijan will focus on adaptations to climate change, mitigation of its consequences and commitments by states. A UN report calls for more speed.

If the Paris climate goals are not to remain a utopia, action must be taken quickly – with a lot of money and even more measures: This is how the demands of the so-called Emission Gap Report of the UN Environment Program (UNEP), which has now been published, can be summarized.

According to the calculations, greenhouse gases with a climate impact of 57.1 gigatons of carbon dioxide (carbon dioxide equivalents) were emitted worldwide in 2023 – a record high. A record level of emissions was already recorded last year. Now the value has risen again by 1.3 percent, it is said. For comparison: in the decade before the corona pandemic, global greenhouse gas emissions rose by an average of 0.8 percent annually.

As in previous years, most emissions came from the energy sector, with a share of 26 percent, such as electricity generation, followed by transport with 15 percent and agriculture and industry with a share of 11 percent each.

The annual inventory, which is published a few weeks before the World Climate Conference in the Azerbaijani capital Baku, focuses on the gap between the real greenhouse gas emissions expected in the coming years and the values ​​that would be necessary to achieve the Paris climate goals. Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, particularly carbon dioxide, play a role in increasing global temperatures.

Because of global warming, extreme weather, such as heat waves and droughts, storms and floods, is occurring more frequently in many regions. This can make entire regions uninhabitable, destroy crops and thus worsen hunger crises. Sea levels are also rising, threatening coastal regions and small island states.

The main demand is on the large industrialized countries, which make the largest contribution to the emission of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and thus to global temperature rises. “Essentially, we would need a global mobilization on an unprecedented scale and speed,” demands UNEP chief Inger Andersen.

According to the report, time is of the essence: In order to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees, the world’s countries would have to jointly commit to reducing annual greenhouse gas emissions by 42 percent by 2030 and by 57 percent by 2035 compared to 2019. The commitments are currently far below that.

In order to achieve these global reduction targets, the G20 countries in particular – with the exception of the African Union – would have to do the “hard work”, said Andersen. The title of the UNEP report, “No more hot air, please” sounds ambiguous and warning at the same time: global warming should be stopped – and the time for fine words is over.

A few weeks before the UN climate conference in Baku, Azerbaijan, the report calls on the G20 countries to take measures and invest to reduce emissions: This group is not even on track to meet the current national contribution targets, is it[calledMemberswiththehighestemissionsmust“taketheleadbydramaticallyincreasingtheiractionsandambitionsnowandinthenewcommitments”

According to the information, the G20 members without the African Union were responsible for 77 percent of emissions in 2023. The admission of the African Union as a permanent G20 member would only increase the share by five percent to 82 percent. This shows the need for differentiated responsibilities between nations.

The per capita calculations of carbon dioxide emissions for different countries and regions make the global differences clear: According to the report, the value in Russia last year was 19 tons of carbon dioxide equivalents per inhabitant, in the USA 18 tons, in China 11 tons and in the EU countries an average of 7.3 tonnes. The 55 states of the African Union, on the other hand, achieved a combined per capita value of 2.2 tonnes and the 47 least developed states only achieved 1.5 tonnes.

“We urgently need to push ahead with the exit from fossil fuels, otherwise gigantic amounts of CO2 will continue to enter our atmosphere and fuel global warming,” said Viviane Raddatz, climate chief at WWF Germany, about the UNEP report. “Anything we don’t invest in now will have to be spent twice or tripled later.”

The findings should be reflected in global financing as well as in the German budget. “We need at least the promised six billion euros from Germany for climate protection worldwide, we need the promised 100 billion US dollars annually from the states of the Global North by 2025 and we need agreement in Baku on a higher financing target from 2026,” demanded Raddatz.