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Greenhouse gas emissions hit a new high last year, before COVID-19 slowed the global economy, putting the world on track for an average temperature rise of 3 degrees Celsius, a U.N. report showed Wednesday.
If realized, the temperature increase runs hotter than that deemed desirable by the voluntary Paris climate accord, which is marking a five-year check-in this weekend.
The report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) caps a year of notable weather extremes like a high number of named Atlantic storms, rapid ice loss in the Arctic, record heat waves and devastating wildfires from Siberia to Australia to the U.S. West. Scientists say climate change makes regular weather events more extreme and potentially dangerous.
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Researchers at Europe’s Copernicus Climate Change Service have said last month was the hottest-ever November on record.
The annual UNEP “emissions gap” report measures the divide between anticipated emissions and those consistent with limiting the global temperature rise this century as agreed in the 2015 Paris agreement.
The voluntary Paris pact that unites major governments, but has included private companies from the sidelines, aims to hold the increase in average global temperatures “well below” 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), and ideally no more than 1.5C (2.7 F), compared to pre-industrial levels.
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Inger Andersen, UNEP executive director, said the pandemic can be a starting point for a truly green recovery that can take “a huge slice out of greenhouse gas emissions” and slow climate change.
“I urge governments to back a green recovery in the next stage of COVID-19 fiscal interventions and raise significantly their climate ambitions in 2021”, she said.
The UNEP report found that improvements in shipping and aviation technology and operations can improve fuel efficiency. However, with increasing demand, the sectors also need a rapid transition further away from fossil fuel to achieve absolute reductions in carbon dioxide emissions.
The report also confirmed that combined emissions of the richest 1% of the global population account for more than twice the combined emissions of the poorest 50%. The top tier will need to reduce their collective footprint by a factor of 30, to stay in line with the Paris targets.
