The latest climate pledges put forth by nations will cut global greenhouse gas emissions just 6% by 2035, a UN report has said, weeks before COP31 talks in Turkey.<\/p>\n
That is a tenth of the roughly 60% reduction from 2019 levels that scientists say is needed to limit warming to 1.5C, significantly down from last year’s estimate after the United States withdrew from the Paris Agreement.<\/p>\n
The report by UN Climate Change is a synthesis of 154 countries’ nationally determined contributions (NDCs) – obligatory submissions under the 2015 Paris deal – received between January 2024 and August 2026, covering 71% of global emissions.<\/p>\n
It found that if the countries fully implemented their plans and also met conditional targets, emissions cuts would still amount to just 9%.<\/p>\n
The UN last year estimated a 10% cut by 2035, but that was before a large number of NDCs had come in, leaving it to model the missing pledges, and before the US was taken out of the equation.<\/p>\n
Under President Donald Trump, the US has left the Paris Agreement for a second time and is pursuing policies that heavily favour fossil fuels.<\/p>\n
Last week, the United Nations Environment Programme found that global commitments to cut planet-heating emissions put the world on course for 2.6C warming this century.<\/p>\n
“With its focus on practical measures to support greater implementation,” the COP31 meeting in Turkey “can help address some of the key gaps,” UN climate chief Simon Stiell said in a statement.<\/p>\n
To have a reasonable chance of limiting warming to 1.5C by the year 2100 compared to pre-industrial levels, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that global greenhouse gas emissions need to fall by 60% from 2019 levels by 2035.<\/p>\n
For pathways to limiting warming to below 2C – the Paris Agreement’s fallback goal – emissions would need to fall by 37% by 2035.<\/p>\n