UN Climate Reports Highlight CO2 Levels, Global Action Gaps

The three reports from the United Nations released in October 2024 paint a bleak picture of countries’ inability to achieve the objectives of the Paris Agreement targets, specifically in keeping the 1.5°C target alive.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres emphasized the urgency of the situation, stating, “We’re teetering on a planetary tightrope. Either leaders bridge the emissions gap, or we plunge headlong into climate disaster,” during his remarks about the 2024 Emission Gap Report released on October 24 (Dickie, 2024).

The report finds that countries’ aggregate current Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) or national climate action plans by each country on how they will reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to the effects of climate change will put the world on 2.6-3.1°C of warming by 2100. This warming will bring catastrophic and debilitating impacts to people, the planet, and economies.

The Emission Gap Report 2024, now in its 15th edition, brings together key insights from the latest 168 nationally determined contributions submitted by 195 Parties to the Paris Agreement, all captured in the registry as of September 9, 2024. This report highlights the actions countries need to undertake to limit global warming to 1.5°C, as outlined in the Paris Agreement.

The report also shows countries must slash GHG emissions by 42% by 2023 and 57% by 2035. It urges countries to make stronger and more ambitious climate pledges and deliver them in their next round of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), due for submission in early 2025 ahead of COP30.

The UN Climate Change Secretariat (UNFCCC) ‘s 2024 Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) Synthesis Report, published on 28 October, showed that combined current plans would see emissions of 51.5 gigatonnes of CO2 equivalent in 2030, an amount just 2.6% lower than in 2019.

According to the IPCC, CO2 emissions reductions must be at 43% compared to 2019, highlighting a stark difference between emissions from the aggregate climate plans and what is required to meet the 1.5°C temperature limit.

Simon Stiell, the Executive Secretary of UNFCCC, urged governments to convert pledges into “real world, real economy results.”

“Current national climate plans fall miles short of what’s needed to stop global heating from crippling every economy and wrecking billions of lives and livelihoods across every country,” he added.

Lastly, a report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) released on 28 October reveals that greenhouse gas concentrations increased to a new record in 2023, committing the planet to rising temperatures for many years.

According to the report, carbon dioxide (CO2) accumulates in the atmosphere faster than ever during human existence, rising by more than 10% in just two decades. The long lifetime of CO2 in the atmosphere locks in future temperature increases.

The 2023 increase of CO2 in the atmosphere was higher than that of 2022, although lower than that of the three years before that. The annual increase of 2.3 ppm marked the 12th consecutive year with an increase greater than 2 ppm.

The WMO’s annual Greenhouse Gas Bulletin notes that large vegetation fire CO2 emissions, a possible reduction in carbon absorption by forests, and high fossil fuel CO2 emissions from human and industrial activities drive this increase in 2023.

Read the reports:

• 2024 Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) Synthesis Report 
• Emission Gap Report 2024
• WMO Greenhouse Gas Bulletin