The world is heading toward an “irrecoverable exceedance” of global temperature thresholds that will plunge billions of people into disastrous climate consequences because governments have procrastinated for so long to reduce the planet’s heat emissions, an analysis suggests.
Under current policies, the planet will warm by an average of 2.7°C by the end of the century compared to pre-industrial times, according to the Climate Action Tracker (CAT) report. This is up slightly from the 2.6°C forecast contained in the group’s analysis conducted last year.
This level of warming exceeds the threshold of 1.5°C agreed by countries ten years ago, but which is expected to be exceeded in just a few years. Scientists have warned that beyond this point, storms, droughts, heatwaves, floods and other already harmful impacts will become intolerable in some parts of the world and could trigger runaway climate change that cannot be contained.
Countries except the United States are meeting in the Turkish city of Antalya for U.N. climate talks focused on the imminent “overshoot” of the temperature target. This reality should compel governments to act quickly to phase out the use of fossil fuels that drive the climate crisis, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on Tuesday.
If countries acted decisively to reduce emissions, future temperature projections would become less daunting, the CAT report says. However, even in the most optimistic scenario – in which all commitments, targets and other long-term promises made by countries are kept – global warming would still be 1.9°C by the end of the century.
However, these objectives have been systematically flouted by the countries which set them. That means leaders face a critical moment, experts say.
“The stark choice for governments is either to continue supporting the fossil fuel industry, which would condemn humanity to insurmountable economic damage, with increasing mortality from heat and climate-induced diseases and disasters to which they are unable to adapt – or to turn to the solutions that are available and cheaper than ever,” says Bill Hare, chief executive of CAT’s partner organization, Climate Analytics.
Hare said warming above 1.5C “cannot be an excuse to open the door to defeatism” and that every small increase in temperature will be significant. The CAT analysis is similar to one recently released by the UN, which uses past CAT data to inform its own projections.
As the world fails to reduce emissions in line with science and country pledges, carbon pollution is expected to decline slightly this year and the CAT highlighted some reasons for optimism. Investment in clean energy is now twice that of fossil fuels, the use of electric cars is exploding, and deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has declined sharply.
But much more will need to be done to avoid disastrous climate impacts. Greta Thunberg, the Swedish climate advocate, arrived in Antalya on Tuesday and warned that “everything and everyone we love is at stake” due to the failure to tackle the climate crisis.
“Governments, collectively, are simply not moving fast enough to enact the policies that would allow us to escape the looming overrun trap,” said Sarah Heck, lead author of the CAT report. Some countries, like the United States, Canada and New Zealand, are even slowing down their climate action to a “staggering level,” she added.
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