Around ten days before the start of the world climate conference in Egypt, the United Nations (UN) accused the international community of doing too little to protect the climate. Efforts to protect the climate were far from sufficient to even come close to reaching the 1.5 degree target. Greenhouse gas emissions would have to be reduced by 45 percent by 2030, according to the “Emissions Gap” report by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), which was presented on Thursday in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi.
Only radical changes in all sectors of the economy – for example in the areas of energy, industrial production, transport, construction, the food industry and the financial system – could still prevent a climate catastrophe from occurring. With the CO2 savings initiated at the last world climate conference in Glasgow, the earth will warm up by 2.4 to 2.6 degrees by the end of the century. That is significantly more than the value of 1.5 degrees agreed in the Paris climate agreement, which researchers say is necessary to preserve the earth.
Although the states in Glasgow have sharpened their plans, it only reduces greenhouse gases by half a gigatonne, a fraction of the required reduction: “The challenge is that we only have seven years to close the gap of 20 gigatonnes of reduction, to do that To meet the 1.5 degree target, so reducing just half a gigaton in a year is totally insufficient,” said John Christensen, who worked on the UNEP report, the German Press Agency.
The “Emissions Gap” describes the difference between the CO2 savings promised by the global community and the reductions required to achieve the climate protection goals.
