As countries convene at climate summit in Egypt, reports show the world is wildly off track. Here’s what to watch at COP27 in Madrid.
The first step in a plan to eliminate man-made emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) has been achieved: the Paris climate accord signed on Monday officially commits the United States, along with 23 other nations, to meet the goal of holding global warming to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit. (We’re not there yet. We’ll probably pass that mark during this century.)
But beyond the U.S., other industrialized nations have yet to meet the accord’s agreed goals for slashing their emissions, and the world’s countries have yet to agree on a plan for meeting a target they are not even certain will be met. The International Energy Agency estimates that, for this decade, carbon emissions are now 1.2 percent above the level they were in 2000, a decline of just over 0.1 percent—a very slow pace that may not even be enough to meet the 2-degree target.
So while the U.S. is moving forward, other industrialized and developing countries are falling further and further behind. If we keep on as we are, experts say, and if countries don’t act quickly to transition away from fossil fuel fuels to carbon-neutral energy sources like solar and wind, that would almost certainly result in runaway warming. And scientists agree that the world already passed a point of no return on global warming that could make it unviably dangerous to society and the environment.
So what can the rest of us do? The answer, says Joao Pinto-da-Silva, a science professor at the London School of Economics and the University of Lisbon who has written extensively on climate, carbon, and energy, is for the wealthy countries of the world to meet their international emissions reduction obligations in the first half of this decade and then, after that, for all countries to start planning for an emissions-free transition.
“The rich countries have to start planning now,” Pinto-da-Silva said in an interview. “Otherwise, what you’re basically doing is moving the goalposts one by one.”
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