Climate action must accelerate to meet 2030 goals, report finds
None of the 2030 targets are on track to meet the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, a report from the World Resources Institute’s (WRI) Systems Change Lab reports.
The report, State of Climate Action 2022 (218 pages, PDF), analyzed progress made in accelerating climate action across sectors that account for roughly 85 percent of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions—power, buildings, industry, transport, forests and land, and food and agriculture—then quantified the global gap in climate action by comparing current efforts to those required by 2030 and 2050 to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. According to the report, global GHG emissions are higher now than they were when the Paris Agreement was adopted in 2015, and none of the 40 targets is on track to achieve the 2030 targets. Of the indicators assessed, six are moving in the right direction at a promising but insufficient speed; 21 are heading in the right direction but well below the required pace; five are headed in the wrong direction entirely; and eight have insufficient data to track progress. The report also revealed that achieving targets will require global climate finance to increase more than 10 times faster to reach $5.2 trillion per year by 2030, while simultaneously, public financing of fossil fuels, including subsidies, need to be phased out five times more quickly.
In encouraging news, the report, which is a joint effort between Bezos Earth Fund, Climate Action Tracker, Climate Analytics, ClimateWorks Foundation, NewClimate Institute, the United Nations Climate Change High-Level Champions, and WRI, revealed the adoption of zero-carbon power sources is on the rise across the world, including solar generation, which grew by 47 percent, and wind, which increased 31 percent. The transition to electric vehicles also has increased, accounting for almost 9 percent of passenger car sales in 2021—double from the year before.
“The disconnect between the massive funding necessary to address the climate crisis and the modest sums that governments have delivered is startling,” said ClimateWorks Foundation president and CEO Helen Mountford. “Considering how governments mobilized to combat the COVID-19 pandemic and respond to the energy crisis, it is clear that governments aren’t treating climate change with the urgency it demands. At COP27, nations must commit to increasing finance and investments in the clean economy, boosting resilience to climate impacts, and addressing loss and damage to support the people and communities severely impacted by climate change today.”
“This year, the world has seen the devastation wrought by just 1.1 degrees Celsius of warming. Every fraction of a degree matters in the fight to protect people and the planet. We are seeing important advances in the fight against climate change—but we are still not winning in any sector,” said WRI president and CEO Ani Dasgupta. “The State of Climate Action 2022 is an urgent wake up call for decision makers to commit to real transformation across every aspect of our economy.”
(Photo credit: Getty Images/aydinmutlu)
