Climate plans don’t limit dangerous warming, UN says ahead of COP

Only 64 countries have submitted new plans to cut carbon emissions, despite all being required to do so ahead of next month's COP30 summit, according to the UN.

Taken together, these national commitments will fail to keep the world from warming more than 1.5°C, the key threshold for very dangerous levels of climate change.

While the UN review does show progress in reducing carbon dioxide emissions over the next decade, the projected drop is not enough to stop temperatures from rising beyond that global target.

The report highlights the scale of the task facing world leaders who travel to Belem in northern Brazil next week for the COP30 climate conference.

Ten years after the Paris Climate Pact was signed in 2015, countries' efforts to limit rising global temperatures have come under renewed scrutiny.

Each signatory agreed to submit a new carbon reduction plan every five years that would cover the next decade.

But only 64 countries managed to make a new commitment this year, despite repeated deadline extensions. They account for about 30% of global emissions.

In addition, the UN review includes statements from China and the EU regarding their plans for the future, made at Climate Week in New York in September.

Taken together, these efforts mean global carbon dioxide emissions should fall by about 10% by 2035.

However, scientists say such a drop is not enough to keep the temperature rise below 1.5°C.

Maintaining this target will require dramatic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, up to 57% by 2035. according to the UN last year.

“This report shows that we are moving in the right direction, but too slowly,” said Laurence Tubiana, director general of the European Climate Fund, often cited as a key architect of the Paris Agreement.

“It is critical to recognize missing national commitments and confront the persistent gap between ambition and actual implementation.”

The 1.5°C limit agreed in Paris has long been seen as the threshold for very dangerous warming.

In 2018, scientists outlined the huge benefits to the world of keeping temperature rises below 1.5°C, compared with the possibility of temperatures rising to 2°C. A 1.5°C rise in temperature will lead to more frequent and intense heatwaves and storms, increased damage to coral reefs and growing threats to human health and livelihoods, UN scientists say.

However, this limit was broken in 2024 for the first time in a whole year.

UN leaders are increasingly recognizing that at the current pace, this threshold will be fully crossed by the early 2030s.

“One thing is already clear: we will not be able to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius in the next few years,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told delegates at a World Meteorological Organization meeting last week.

“Overregulation is now inevitable. This means that in the coming years we will have a period, greater or less, with higher or lower intensity, above 1.5°C.”

Despite this, the UN is keen to highlight that there are some significant green shoots in the new report that offer hope.

Many other countries are expected to present their plans when their leaders gather at COP30 in Belem, Brazil.

Major carbon producers such as India and Indonesia have not yet made public their plans to reduce carbon emissions. They will likely do this during COP30, and this could have a significant impact on overall projections for 2035.

Some countries are also likely to cut spending faster and deeper than promised, experts say.

“It’s actually quite reasonable to look at China,” said Todd Stern, a former US special envoy for climate change.

“They will set a certain number, which is low, and then exceed it, and China does this a lot.”

The UN says they are confident that emissions worldwide are likely to peak and begin to decline in the next few years for the first time since the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century.

They say existing plans show clear steps towards achieving net-zero emissions by mid-century. Net zero means a balance between the amount of planet-warming “greenhouse” gases produced by human activity with the amount that is actively removed from the atmosphere.

One important factor is that the cuts assessed by the UN include the planned US pledge unveiled under President Biden.

Although President Donald Trump has said he will withdraw from the Paris Agreement, the process is not yet complete, so the UN is factoring US plans into its calculations even if they don't go as planned.