When the Paris Agreement turns five, world leaders and others are ready for an anniversary summit to demonstrate their commitment to the landmark climate agreement in 2015, which critics warn already shows that it has failed.
Saturday’s summit on climate ambition – hosted by France, the United Kingdom and the United Nations – hopes to “gather momentum” and increase countries’ commitments ahead of next November’s Cop26 conference in Glasgow.
With several studies warning Paris’ goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 C is still out of reach, governments are being pressured to present major and better climate policy measures to drastically reduce their emissions in the coming decade.
About 70 heads of state will speak at the virtual event, which comes on the back of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterre’s dangerous warnings that humanity’s ‘suicide war’ against nature will end in disaster if governments do not address it now.
In fact, the climate action tracker calculated this week that even if all of the world’s existing zero-zero promises are met, temperatures would still rise by 2.1C above pre-industrial levels.
To add context, scientists warn that warming 2C or more would cause extreme weather problems, kill almost all of the world’s corals, destroy huge parts of plant habitats and throw hundreds of millions of people into poverty.
Hotter temperatures
The five years since the Paris Agreement have been the hottest ever recorded, with a report from the World Meteorological Organization confirming that despite the global downturn caused by Covid-19, atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases have continued to rise.
“Inaction must give way to an urgent and massive step forward,” said the French branch of the climate action network in a study warning the way forward has become much steeper since the Paris Agreement was signed on 12 December 2015.
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Under the hashtag # FightFor1Point5, the Swedish activist Greta Thunberg used the 5 year anniversary of the Paris Agreement to warn “the world is still going in the wrong direction” with its “distant, hypothetical goals”.
Her emergency call is supported by the UN’s environmental program report on Emission Gap 2020, published on Wednesday, which compares the current emission path with emission promises under the Paris Agreement.
It warns the world is on track for an average temperature increase of 3C, adding that carbon dioxide emissions reached a new high in 2019.
More aggressive targets
While a promise from President-elect Joe Biden to allow the United States to rejoin the Paris Agreement has shown optimism, aggressive climate targets from the EU, China, Japan and South Korea stand to provide the greatest rewards.
The EU took a step closer to its ambition to become the world’s first climate-neutral continent on Friday when group leaders agreed to reduce CO2 emissions by 55 percent by 2030. The decision to raise the climate target from 40 to 55 percent came after intense negotiations that lasted all night.
With global temperatures already at around 1.1 ยฐ C above the pre-industrial average, the organizers of the climate ambition peak will hope for similar promises of deeper emission reductions from leaders on Saturday.
In particular, there are expectations that China will improve its promise to reduce emissions to net zero by 2060 in particular.
“The world will be watching,” Greenpeace International said in a statement – describing December 12 as “a moment of accountability” during which policy makers have the opportunity to change course.
The NGO’s appeal to world leaders is simple: “respect the people, respect the business.”
Source: sn.dk