Are the Current Plans to Tackle Pollution Enough?

A new report released by the United Nations (UN) has concluded that while the pledges made by 146 countries to reduce carbon emissions and try to alleviate the problem of global warming are an encouraging sign, they are simply not enough.

With many experts predicting that we must avoid a global temperature rise of 2°C by the end of the century in order to escape far more serious consequences of climate change, the UN has judged that with the current plans, such a target will not be achievable.

Facts and Figures

Already, 146 countries have signed up to the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) plan, which has seen nations promise to try and reduce their carbon footprint through a variety of means. Indeed, air quality and reducing harmful emissions has been a hot topic of late in Britain, with the Air Quality and Emissions (AQE) convention this year being the most well attended in history.

But while making climate change and carbon emissions buzzwords in government and social spheres is a step in the right direction, the UN report predicts that it will not go far enough. Instead of limiting temperature hikes to within 2°C by 2100, the UN has predicted that the current plans will do enough to bring global warming down to around 2.7°C. While this is far better than the earlier projections of 4°C, 5°C or even more that had been touted by certain speculators, it still leaves many countries most vulnerable to climate change in dire straits.

In fact, underdeveloped and lower lying countries (most at risk of severe flooding in the case of rising sea levels due to global warming) have suggested that the 2°C is not actually sufficient. Instead, such nations would prefer to err on the side of caution by aiming for a reduction to a mere 1.5°C temperature rise.

Paris Summit

The assessment has been released just mere days prior to the year’s most important event in climate change terms – the UN summit which is to be held later this year in Paris. Last time the world’s nations got together to discuss these serious issues was in Copenhagen, Denmark in 2009. On that particular occasion, the talks stalled precisely because developed and low-risk nations refused to accede to the demand for a lower global limit.

Prominent commentators have seen the report as positive evidence that more affirmative action must be taken to avoid disaster. “It is clear that, when added up, the 146 countries’ climate pledges reviewed in the report are not enough,” stated Dr Stephen Cornelius, climate change advisor for the WWF. “A big challenge for the Paris climate talks is how to increase the ambition of countries so that their collective actions will put us on the right path to tackle climate change. The message we have to send to leaders and negotiators in Paris must be: we must do more, and we must do it faster. The more that we do now, the easier and cheaper it will be.”

With representatives from around 190 governments from around the world expected to attend in Paris, it must be hoped that the UN’s report can spur us on to surpass the INDC pledges already made and bring down the projected temperature rise even further.