greenhouse gas emissions remain far too high and are leading the planet towards a warming of +3.1°C

An awareness but actions still far too timid to limit global warming with dramatic consequences. Thursday October 24, two weeks before the 29^e Conference of the Parties (COP29) in Baku, Azerbaijan, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) publishes its fifteenth “Emissions Gap Report”. “There is a direct link between increasing emissions and increasingly frequent and intense climate disasters. People all over the world are paying a heavy price.”alerted Antonio Guterres, Secretary General of the UN, in parallel with the publication of this study.

According to this document, the release of greenhouse gases (GHG) is still far too high to limit the rise in global temperatures below the thresholds set by the Paris agreement in 2015, i.e. “significantly below +2°C” and if possible at + 1.5°C. In line with the scientific literature, UNEP instead forecasts a warming of +3.1°C at the end of the century if the contributions determined at the national level (CDN, climate commitments defined by the States themselves) are not drastically reinforced. A sign that the situation continues to get worse, the UN expected in 2023 an increase from 2.5°C to 2.9°C in 2100. “Ambition means nothing without action”warn the United Nations authors.

On the ambition side, the majority of States seem lucid about the importance of the issue: 101 parties, representing 107 countries and covering approximately 82% of global GHG emissions, have already made commitments from zero net emissions to more or less long term (2050 for the European Union (EU), 2060 for China, etc.). But the implementation of the action is much too slow.

The report thus estimates that emissions linked to human activities increased by 1.3% between 2022 and 2023, a rate higher than the average for the 2010-2019 decade (+ 0.8%). In 2023, all countries will have released 57.1 gigatons of CO equivalent₂. The energy sector remained the largest global contributor with 15.1 gigatons followed by transport (8.4 gigatons), agriculture (6.5 gigatons) and industry (6.5 gigatons ). Responsible for 2% of total emissions, aviation showed the strongest growth, 19.5% in 2023 compared to the 2022 level (compared to average annual growth of 3.1% from 2010 to 2019).

China, the biggest emitter

“We are depleting our carbon budget year after year and humanity is not at all on the right trajectorysummarizes Swiss climatologist Sonia Seneviratne, professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich and vice-president of working group 1 of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Carbon neutrality should be achieved by 2050 at the latest. To achieve this objective, the scientific scenarios evaluated by the IPCC count on around 90% reduction in CO emissions._2. The transition is necessary in all sectors and we are just starting to see it in some areas. »

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