NW Democrat-Gazette

Reports warn of calamity on greenhouse emissions

WILLIAM BOOTH AND AMANDA COLETTA Information for this article was contributed by Brady Dennis and Sarah Kaplan of the Washington Post.

Global greenhouse gas emissions are on a catastrophic trajectory and developed nations will fall short of a pledge made more than a decade ago to mobilize $100 billion per year by 2020 to help developing nations shift to greener economies and adapt to climate change, two reports concluded Monday.

The findings raise the stakes for — and threaten to undermine — the success of a United Nations climate summit, known as COP26, which begins in Glasgow, Scotland, next week and could determine whether the world can effectively reset its climate trajectory.

Greenhouse gas emissions are on a path to increase 16% by the end of the decade compared with 2010, setting the world on a dangerous course of future warming, the United Nations said in a report synthesizing the Nationally Determined Contributions — or commitments — of 192 nations to reduce emissions.

Without more ambitious pledges, the world is projected to warm 4.9 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century compared with the end of the 1800s — far above the Paris climate accords’ goal of limiting warming to “well below” 3.6 Fahrenheit compared with preindustrial levels, and, if possible, 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit.

A separate report Monday from Canadian environment minister Jonathan Wilkinson and Jochen Flasbarth, his German counterpart, said rich countries would likely meet their goal of providing $100 billion annually to developing nations in 2023 — three years behind schedule.

The pair was tasked by COP26 president designate Alok Sharma with coming up with a plan to deliver the funds — an issue he has called “totemic.” The failure of rich countries to meet their goal has fueled mistrust among developing nations, which historically have done less to fuel climate change, but are disproportionately vulnerable to its consequences.

It is poised to be a major sticking point at COP26, where slowing the world’s warming will depend on good faith and collective action. Many developing nations have said that their climate pledges are conditional on receiving outside support.

“I’m disappointed, as are developing countries,” Flasbarth told reporters Monday. “But … there is a lot of money already on the table. There is a lot of support and it will increase and it has to increase.”

The report, which is based on projections from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, estimates that financing will reach or surpass $100 billion in 2023 and exceed $110 billion in 2025. Many analysts have said the initial $100 billion per year goal is insufficient.

Eddy Perez, international climate diplomacy manager for Climate Action Network Canada, said that while the “level of honesty” from rich countries about missing their collective target is welcome, the gap is “unacceptable.”

“The question today is: Does this document actually show the urgency that it is for rich countries to massively scale up climate finance flows during the COP … and the clear answer is no,” he said. “The message that is coming from this document is you need to wait until 2023 to see if we will be able to deliver the $100 billion.”

The report doesn’t name and shame individual countries, but says that “all developed countries have to step up efforts.” It said one reason developed nations have missed their target is because “private finance mobilization underperformed against expectations.”

Efforts to marshal the funding have been complicated by debates about whether the aid should take the form of loans or grants. Determining how much has been mobilized has been difficult because of a lack of uniformity in how countries account for climate finance.

President Biden announced last month that the United States pledged to work with Congress to double the funding that it provides each year to help low-income nations combat climate change to $11.4 billion annually by 2024.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson confessed Monday that he was “very worried” about COP26 failing.

Asked about getting the world leaders to commit to net-zero emissions by 2050, he said: “I think it can be done. It will be very, very tough, this summit, and I’m very worried because it might go wrong and we might not get the agreements that we need, and it’s touch and go.”

The prime minister was speaking with schoolchildren about climate change. He said “peer pressure” was a good tool to wield, but he repeated, “It’s very, very far from clear that we will get the progress that we need.”

He also joked with the children that the balance of nature could be restored by feeding “some of the people … to the animals.”

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2021-10-26T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-10-26T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://edition.nwaonline.com/article/281732682694405

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