SOURCE: Vox
DATE: October 31, 2017
SNIP: In 2015 in Paris, the countries of the world agreed to hold the rise in global average temperatures to “well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.”
How’s that going?
The unavoidably grim answer: not well, and not just because President Donald Trump has promised to pull the United States out of the accord.
Every year, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) releases an “Emissions Gap” report, on the remaining disparity between the world’s stated ambitions on climate and the actions it is currently taking. The 2017 edition of the report is out a week before the next round of international climate talks in Bonn, Germany. And it reports that the gap remains … substantial.
Collectively, the carbon reductions pledged by the world’s countries in Paris are woefully inadequate. Even assuming all countries fulfill their pledges, it would account for only about a third of the needed emission reductions to get to 2 degrees.