Editorial: World needs to do more

The concentration of carbon dioxide is now 50% higher than before the start of the Industrial Revolution

Now, the choice is between existence and extinction. The climate crisis can no longer be ignored nor can the world afford to continue bickering over funding and technology transfers. A new report from the United Nations has warned that climate action plans of various countries remain insufficient to limit global warming. The governments across the world are only taking baby steps to avert the climate crisis. They are not enough to limit the global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrialisation level and meet the goals of the Paris Agreement. The concentration of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, is now 50% higher than before the start of the Industrial Revolution. A lot more action is needed now to decrease the world’s carbon emissions and avoid the worst impacts of climate change. The UN report comes just weeks before world leaders are due to gather in Dubai for the annual UN climate conference COP28 (Conference Of Parties) which will see governments push for greater climate action, including a possible phase-out of fossil fuels before 2050. Under current national climate plans, known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), emissions can be expected to rise 9% above 2010 levels by the end of this decade even if NDCs are fully implemented. Coal must be phased out seven times faster than is happening now to avoid the worst impacts of global heating. However, as the UN report revealed, coal-fired power generation is the single largest source of energy-related carbon dioxide emissions globally and that there were more than 8,000 coal-fired power plants operating across 90 countries.

There is an urgent need to reduce the consumption of fossil fuels. The 2015 Paris Agreement – which India is also signatory to – mandates that each nation should prepare and maintain NDCs that it intends to achieve to mitigate the impacts of climate change. These reports are released by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change – which has been adopted by 198 parties including India – which aims to combat dangerous human interference with the climate system. However, many nations have failed to deliver on almost every policy required to cut emissions, despite progress on renewable energy and electric cars. Another key issue in the climate change debate is that the wealthy nations have failed to deliver on their promise of providing compensation and transferring modern technologies to the poor and vulnerable countries to tackle the climate crisis. There is a genuine sense of hurt among the countries with highest vulnerability to climate change that their concerns are not being addressed. The developing countries, in fact, have a minuscule greenhouse gases footprint. Global greenhouse gas emissions should fall by nearly half by 2030, compared with 2010 levels, if the world is to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2100, compared with the start of the industrial age.

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