UN says while plans submitted by most signatories of the Paris Agreement will reduce global greenhouse gas emissions, they still need to be ambitious enough to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius by the end of the century.

The UN gave the warning in a report published by the UN Climate Change (UNFCCC) on Wednesday.

The current combined National Determined Contributions (NDCs)—the countries’ national efforts to tackle emissions and mitigate climate change—are leading our planet to at least 2.5 degrees warming, a level deemed catastrophic by scientists at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

In 2019, the IPCC indicated that to curb global warming, CO2 emissions needed to be cut by 43 per cent by 2030, compared to 2010 levels, but current climate plans show a 10.6 per cent increase instead.

However, this is an improvement compared to last year’s report, which showed a 13.7 per cent increase by 2030 and a continued rise of emissions after 2030.

“The downward trend in emissions expected by 2030 shows that nations have made some progress in 2022,” Simon Stiell, executive secretary of UN Climate Change, said.

“But the science is clear, and so are our climate goals under the Paris Agreement. We are still nowhere near the scale and pace of emission reductions required to put us on track toward a 1.5 degrees Celsius world,” he warned.

Mr Stiell underscored that national governments needed to strengthen their climate action plans and implement them in the next eight years.

Fossil fuel power plants are one of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases that cause climate change.

In 2021, all countries agreed to revisit and strengthen their climate plans during the UN Climate Change Conference COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland. However, only 24 out of 193 nations submitted updated plans to the UN.

“…It’s disappointing. Government decisions and actions must reflect the level of urgency, the gravity of the threats we are facing, and the shortness of the time we have remaining to avoid the devastating consequences of runaway climate change,” he said.

(NAN)