New study says that unless nations ramp up their carbon-reduction pledges before 2020, it will be nearly impossible to keep warming to 2 degrees.
The next three years provide the “last chance” to limit global warming to safe limits in this century, the United Nations said, as it geared up for a conference in Morocco intended to carry forward the Paris agreement on climate change.
Unless nations move before 2020 to cut their emissions more aggressively than they have promised, the window of opportunity will close and the job that lies ahead will become more costly, it said.
The annual “emissions gap” report compares the goals of the treaty to the pledges of its signatories. In it, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) warned that unless reductions in carbon pollution from the energy sector are reduced swiftly and steeply, it will be nearly impossible to keep warming below 2 degrees, let alone to the 1.5 degree aspiration.
