Emission Gap: Which Countries are Not Meeting Their Emission Targets and Why?

According to the UN Environment Programme research, almost 200 nations have vowed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to avoid the worst effects of the climate catastrophe, but there is still a big gap between what has been promised and what experts think is required.

With only a few days until leaders convene in Glasgow, Scotland, for the UN's COP26 climate conference, dozens of countries have failed to revise their promises to decrease emissions, as required by the provisions of the 2015 Paris Agreement.

Success Rate

Only six countries out of the G20, which account for 80% of global emissions, have publicly upgraded their commitments. Six G20 countries, including the United States, were deemed to have failed to meet their previous objectives, according to the study. Canada, Australia, Brazil, South Korea, and Mexico were the others.

According to experts, the world has already warmed by 1.2 degrees. But, according to the study, the newest set of global climate promises fall well short of what is required to keep warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels - a vital threshold that experts say the world should stay below.

Related Article: Sponsors Criticizes COP26 Claiming the Climate Summit is "Mismanaged"

A Slight Reduction

According to the analysis, new and amended emission promises will only reduce emissions by 7.5 percent by 2030, when a 55 percent reduction is required to reach the objective of keeping global warming to 1.5 degrees.

UNEP reported that the globe will continue to warm to 2.7 degrees under existing objectives.

"Countries have extended, but they haven't stretched far enough," UNEP executive director Inger Andersen told CNN. "Many of them are kicking the can down the road, and what we need to see now is genuine action, not just commitments."

Emission Gap

The yearly "emissions gap" report lays out the disparity between what governments have vowed and what still needs to be done. According to UNEP, the world must cut current emissions in half in the next eight years to keep global warming to 1.5 degrees.

"We're nowhere near where we want to be," added Andersen. "We'd want to be positive and say that the window is still open and that we can make it, but it's closing quickly. The fact is that we must accomplish this within the next decade."

Countries submit "Nationally Determined Contributions," or NDCs, under the 2015 Paris Agreement, a phrase that will be used frequently as world leaders and climate negotiators convene in Glasgow for COP26 - an UN-brokered climate summit - beginning October 31. The NDCs detail each country's carbon reduction plans to meet the Paris Agreement's aim of keeping global warming below 2 degrees Celsius, ideally 1.5 degrees.

According to the UN's interim NDC register, the Paris Agreement presently has 192 parties, all of whom have filed their initial NDCs. The only nations that have not yet joined the Paris Agreement but have submitted the first NDCs are Eritrea and Iraq.

COP26

At COP26, all eyes will be on the affluent G20 nations, especially the world's greatest fossil fuel polluters. According to Andersen, the G20 countries are responsible for around 80% of global emissions.

Major Polluters

The United States, India, and the European Union, three of the major polluters, agreed to cut their emissions by 2030. On the other hand, China has no plans to cut emissions before 2030, instead pledging to attain peak emissions by 2030 and net-zero emissions by 2060.

The analysis on the emissions gap comes after a summer filled with climate-related calamities throughout the world: While flames ravaged the United States, exacerbated by severe drought, flooding, and hurricanes, China and Germany were hit by fatal floods, while Southern Europe faced its wildfires.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres stated in September at the Major Economies Forum that the next climate summit, at which world leaders will convene to discuss carbon goals, has a "high chance of failure."

Also Read: Carbon Rebound: Emissions from World's Richest Countries Rose Exponentially in 2021

For more Environmental news, don't forget to follow Nature World News!