News Excerpt:

The Emissions Gap Report - 2023 was recently published by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

About Emissions Gap Report:

• The Emissions Gap Report (EGR) is UNEP's spotlight report launched annually before the annual Climate negotiations. 
• The EGR tracks the gap between where global emissions are heading with current country commitments and where they ought to be to limit warming to 1.5°C. 

Key highlight of the Emissions Gap Report - 2023:

• As many as 86 days this year have already breached the 1.5 degree Celsius temperature threshold, as global greenhouse gas emissions scaled a record high in 2022.
• The report noted that with the current climate policies of countries, the world was set to become warmer by at least 3 degrees Celsius by the end of the century.
• The world, together, emitted 57.4 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2022, a 1.2 per cent increase over the previous year and higher than the previous record achieved in 2019.
• The emissions of China and the United States, the world’s two biggest emitters, also rose in 2022, as did that of India, the third largest emitter.

• • The European Union, Russia and Brazil saw emissions go down a bit.

• Even if all the climate actions as per the current promises made by the countries were carried out with the highest ambition, global emissions in 2030 would still be at least 19 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent higher than the level required to keep global warming within 1.5 degree Celsius from pre-industrial times (the average of annual temperatures in the 1850-1900 period).

• To meet this gap, global emissions would need to drop by at least 8.7 percent yearly from 2024 (instead of the 1.2 percent rise in 2022).
  • The failure of the world to take early action on climate has brought it into a situation where meeting the 1.5 degree Celsius target looks extremely difficult.

The goal of the 2015 Paris Agreement is to ensure that long-term annual average temperatures do not exceed a 2-degree Celsius increase compared to the pre-industrial averages and preferably be contained within a 1.5-degree Celsius rise.