Chance of limiting global warming to 1.5C is ‘virtually zero’ on current trends, UN warns

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2 weeks ago

October 24, 2024

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The chance of limiting global warming to 1.5C is “virtually zero” on current trends, according to the UN’s environment body.

This year’s Emissions Gap Report finds that emissions of greenhouse gasses in 2023 were the highest on record.

More concerning, the rate of growth since 2022 was nearly twice as fast as in the decade preceding the COVID pandemic.

This comes despite decades of climate talks and a boom in wind and solar power.

The analysis finds that the current trajectory in carbon emissions puts the world on course for a potentially catastrophic 3.1C of warming this century – compared to pre-industrial times.

While emissions in many wealthy countries, including the UK, the US and the EU have peaked, they are not falling anywhere near fast enough to make up for rapidly growing emissions in places like China, India, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and Vietnam.

‘Crunch time is here’

“Climate crunch time is here,” said Inger Andersen, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

“We need global mobilisation on a scale and pace never seen before – starting right now, before the next round of climate pledges.”

The report urges nations meeting at the UN climate summit next month in Baku, Azerbaijan, to come forward with emissions-cutting commitments that don’t continue to ignore the agreement they all signed in Paris in 2015.

The Paris Agreement, signed by 196 countries, pledged to limit global warming to well below 2C above pre-industrial levels and try and prevent it from rising beyond 1.5C.

The UNEP analysis of current carbon-cutting commitments finds only one country, Madagascar, has submitted a more ambitious one since last year.

And only a handful are ambitious enough to actually slow global warming.

If all current pledges were implemented in full the world would still warm by between 2.6C-2.8C this century.

Given many countries, including the UK, are yet to implement policies to fully meet their targets, the current trajectory takes the world closer to a potentially catastrophic 3.1C of warming.

“Central warming projections indicate that the chance of limiting global warming to 1.5C would be virtually zero,” the report concludes.

‘This is a battle we cannot afford to lose’

It’s not all bad news however.

An analysis of the cost of measures to reduce emissions finds there is technical potential for cuts of 31 gigatons of greenhouse gasses by 2030 – around half of the total emitted globally in 2023 – and 41 gigatons by 2035.

This “massive effort” to deploy zero-carbon electricity generation like wind and solar and reverse deforestation trends would bridge the gap needed to put the world back on track to keep warming below 1.5C.

However, years of inaction have made this challenge harder, the report finds.

Emission cuts must be 7.5% steeper every year until 2035 to meet 1.5C and 4% annually to keep to 2C.

“Maybe we won’t get all the way to 1.5C but 1.6C is a lot better than 1.7C,” says Dr Anne Olhoff, the report’s lead author.

“Basically, every fraction of a degree matters and this is a battle we cannot afford to lose.”

Countries have until 2025 to submit new carbon-cutting pledges under the Paris Agreement.

But to deliver the cuts required, the main challenge – and one that will be central to talks at the upcoming climate summit in Baku – is technical and financial assistance from rich countries to poorer ones that don’t bear historical responsibility for global warming.

Progress, says Dr Olhoff, “hinges on immediate and relentless action.”

“Most of all, of course, it depends on political leadership.”

World

Ireland’s Prime Minister Simon Harris reveals planned date for general election

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2 hours ago

November 6, 2024

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Ireland's Prime Minister Simon Harris reveals planned date for general election

Ireland’s prime minister has announced the planned date for a general election to be held this month.

Taoiseach Simon Harris said he hopes the election will take place on 29 November, formally kicking off a truncated campaign which will last mere weeks.

Mr Harris, 38, was appointed Irish prime minister – the youngest in the country’s history – after Leo Varadkar’s shock resignation in March.

He will travel to Aras an Uachtarain on Friday, the official residence of the Irish president, to seek the dissolution of Ireland’s Dail parliament.

Speaking to RTE News on Wednesday, Mr Harris said: “As I would have discussed with the other coalition leaders, it’s my hope that we will have polling day on this country on November 29.”

He added: “I’m looking forward to the weeks ahead and asking the people of Ireland for a mandate.”

There’s a clear reason why this election has been called

So the worst kept secret in Irish politics is finally out, and the people look set to head to the ballot boxes on 29 November.

The taoiseach employs several lofty explanations for why he has decided upon an early election, but it’s hard to look beyond political expediency.

The Fine Gael party has been flying in the polls since Simon Harris became leader in April, while the opposition is in freefall. Sinn Fein, Ireland’s main opposition party, dropped to 16% in one recent poll – the lowest level of support since 2019.

Its leader Mary Lou McDonald – once seen as Ireland’s first female taoiseach in waiting – has been battling a serious decline in support for a year, and is bogged down in firefighting a damaging series of internal party scandals, north and south of the border.

Why wait until next March for an election?

You can read Stephen Murphy’s full analysis here

After refusing to be drawn on the election date for weeks, Mr Harris made the announcement less than an hour after his coalition partner-turned-campaign rival Micheal Martin revealed that the election would be called on Friday.

Mr Harris could have waited until March when the coalition’s five-year term comes to an end to go to the polls, but he has been paving the way for an election in recent weeks, announcing 10.5bn euros (£8.75bn) in tax cuts and spending increases last month.

The election will bring to an end the historic coalition that brought together Fine Gael and Fianna Fail, who had been rivals dating back to the civil war.

It saw Mr Martin, the Fianna Fail leader, taking the taoiseach role for the first half of the lifetime of the government, later replaced by then-Fine Gael leader Mr Varadkar.

The last election was seen as a monumentally successful performance for Sinn Fein, which had the highest percentage of first-preference votes, but the party has struggled in more recent local and European elections.

World

Should we be worried about a Donald Trump presidency?

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2 hours ago

November 6, 2024

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Should we be worried about a Donald Trump presidency?

A man described by not one but two of his closest former aides as a fascist will become the most powerful man in the world when he takes office. How worried should we be?

Very, say another dozen White House staffers who served under Donald Trump and watched him in action for his first four years in power.

In a second term, they are warning that those who once tried to prevent him from acting on his worst impulses will no longer be there to rein him in.

Follow latest: Trump wins US election – as world leaders congratulate him

“The grown ups”, as they were called in Mr Trump’s first administration, will have gone, replaced by people more aligned with his agenda and pushing their own.

What is that agenda and what is to come? That is harder to say. We have learned not to take Donald J Trump literally – his empty promises, lies, and false threats come thick and fast.

The first time round, many of his promises came to nothing; to build a border wall and have Mexico pay for it, to bring peace to the Middle East, to end North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme, and Iran’s too.

But we can say what is likely; trade wars with China, Mexico, and Canada seem probable.

The extent of the tariffs Mr Trump imposes are harder to predict but the impact on the global economy will most likely be considerable.

He could rip up more treaties the US has signed, including climate commitments made by his predecessors.

Mr Trump is likely to undo much of the Biden administration’s work to reverse climate change and the negative impact on the planet may be substantial.

And he is likely to negotiate an end to the Ukraine war largely on Moscow’s terms if his words and those of his team are anything to go by.

His running mate JD Vance says Russia will keep the land it has taken and receive a guarantee of Ukrainian neutrality. Putin could not have hoped for more.

Those hoping for an end to the war in Gaza may be disappointed too.

Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are close allies.

He is likely to give the Israelis plenty of latitude when it comes to the conflict. And there are fears he would not restrain Israel in any future confrontations with Iran unlike the Biden administration, with all the risks of a wider Middle Eastern war that might ensue.

NATO’s uncertain future

Trump’s impact on NATO is harder to predict. His team has floated various plans for the alliance. They all arguably weaken America’s support for it.

Without America’s cast-iron guarantee, will other countries seek their own security arrangements? It seems likely.

One of the great pillars of the post-world war order will have been weakened. But Mr Trump in his first term showed contempt for all its multi-lateral, multinational organisations.

America swings through cycles of isolationism, retreating from the world, then having to re-engage at huge cost to protect its interests.

Mr Trump may prove unwilling to learn the lessons of that history.

Those who regard America, for all its faults, as a positive influence in the world, an example to follow, will be most worried and disheartened.

A demagogic populist, regarded as a fascist by some of those who know him best and who openly admires authoritarians and dictators, will be taking up the reins of power again in the world’s most powerful democracy.

Half of American voters have opted for a man who refused to accept election defeat four years ago, used lies and dirty tricks to try and undermine its result, and stood by while an angry mob ransacked the citadel of American government.

All of that will only embolden other strongmen the world over and damage, perhaps beyond repair, the democracy that Americans have long believed stands as an example for all the world to follow.

World

Ireland’s election was a badly-kept secret – and there’s a clear reason why it’s been called

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2 hours ago

November 6, 2024

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Ireland's election was a badly-kept secret - and there's a clear reason why it's been called

So the worst kept secret in Irish politics is finally out, and the people look set to head to the ballot boxes on 29 November.

The taoiseach employs several lofty explanations for why he has decided upon an early election, but it’s hard to look beyond political expediency.

The Fine Gael party has been flying in the polls since Simon Harris became leader in April, while the opposition is in freefall. Sinn Fein, Ireland’s main opposition party, dropped to 16% in one recent poll – the lowest level of support since 2019.

Why wait until next March for an election? Going now ensures the voters will be getting the first benefits of the recent bumper €10.5bn (£9bn) giveaway budget (“buying votes” according to the opposition) as the polling cards arrive.

Going the parliamentary distance risks the current government buoyancy being sunk by events. A week is a long time in politics, four months an eternity. Why take the risk?

This election will largely be fought on the same issues as 2020. Four years of this coalition government has done nothing to convince voters that Ireland’s chronic housing problem is healing. Homelessness has hit a record high of 14,500.

The health system still creaks and groans under pressure, despite huge investment.

Immigration may be a new factor; concerns over a surge in asylum-seekers arriving in Ireland mean the topic could be a key issue for the first time in an election here.

A chunky budget surplus, full employment, tax cuts and benefit hikes – what Sir Keir Starmer wouldn’t give to be in Simon Harris’s shoes.

But for many citizens, Ireland is a rich country that often feels like a poor country. So the saying goes, at least.

Success for the government parties in this election will rely on reminding the voters of the first part of that truism and glossing over the latter part.

Extra pre-Christmas cash for punters, a hamstrung opposition and that new leader bounce all help greatly – Mr Harris kicks off this campaign in a strong position to be returned as Ireland’s prime minister.

It’s the government’s election to lose.