For decades, we’ve been trying to slow global warming and control climate change. Unfortunately, none of those attempts appear to be paying off, as the UN says climate change control “falls miles short of what’s needed.”
UN Climate Change, the UN agency tasked with addressing global warming and climate change, released a new report this month. The agency carried out a complete analysis of global carbon-cutting plans submitted by almost 200 different countries.
According to this analysis, plans to control climate change are off track and will barely cut pollution by 2030. This means that efforts to keep global warming under 1.5 degrees Celsius this century will be downright impossible. The analysis was released alongside another report that shows greenhouse gases have actually risen by over 11 percent in the past two decades.
A visualization of how global temperatures have changed over the years. Image source: NASA / YouTube
Additionally, that same report shows that atmospheric concentrations surged in 2023. With researchers scrambling to find extreme ways to turn back climate change effects, like sending a giant parasol into space or even filling the atmosphere with sulfur to help keep heat out, these reports are likely only going to push scientists to come up with even more extreme ideas.
The UN says it wants to see just how much progress is being made to drive down emissions threatening to push global temperatures above the predicted 1.5 degrees Celsius this century. Many scientists believe hitting this point could cause unstoppable doomsday loops that will severely damage our planet. As it stands, though, these plans to control climate change are off track quite a bit.
When added up, the current plans only account for a reduction of just 2.6 percent of emissions by 2030 compared to how they looked in 2019. The UN says this falls "miles short” of the 43 percent reduction that scientists claim we need by the end of this decade to keep the world on track to reach net-zero carbon by 2050.
While these findings are stark, the executive secretary of UN Climate Change, Simon Stiell, says they aren’t surprising. The UN expects countries to submit much stronger plans by Sprint next year, with discussions set between world leaders at the next UN climate conference next month. Whether or not these new plans will help our plans to control the climate get back on track remains to be seen, though.
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