The fight against climate change has been during the last years of multilateralism. But it has meant that the commitment of countries to stop global warming is going through one of its worst moments. Proof of this is from the Governments when it comes to presenting their new greenhouse gas cutting programs on time within the framework of the Paris Agreement. Despite everything, the UN climate change area estimates that national plans can lead to a 10% reduction in emissions in 2035.
This decrease, which is already part of an exercise in optimism by the United Nations, would in any case leave the world far from the necessary path for global warming to remain within the safety margins established in the Paris Agreement itself. The , which turns ten years old in 2025, established that the increase in global temperature should not exceed 2 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels. And, as far as possible, below 1.5.
To do this, the IPCC—the panel of international scientists that establishes the foundations of knowledge about climate change—. To achieve the goal of 1.5 degrees, something that is already practically unattainable, gases would have to fall by 60% in 2035 compared to 2019, which are similar to the current ones. To meet the goal of 2 degrees, 35%. In both cases, far from the 10% now predicted by the executive secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
He armed arm of the Paris Agreement are the so-called Nationally Determined Contributions, known in the jargon of climate diplomacy by their acronym NDC. They are voluntary national plans in which countries set out the emissions cuts to which they commit, among other measures. The third round of these NDCs should have been presented in February 2025, with the objectives for 2035. But the United Nations gave another deadline: September 30.
But only 64 countries have complied despite this extension. These nations account for only a third of all greenhouse gas emissions on the planet and alone cannot change the course so that the Paris Agreement is fulfilled, according to the report that the UN climate change area presents this Tuesday.
As the secretary general of that UN department, Simon Stiell, acknowledges in a statement, “global conclusions should not be drawn from this report” because “they offer a rather limited vision, since the total NDCs it synthesizes represent around a third of global emissions.”
Aware of this problem and “in order to offer a broader vision of global progress” before the climate summit that begins in a couple of weeks in Brazil, the convention technicians have “carried out some additional calculations that also include the new NDCs or the new objectives presented or announced until the publication of this report.” And that “broader vision, although still incomplete, shows that global emissions will be reduced by around 10% by 2035.”
This last calculation includes, for example, announcements made by China, the European Union, Mexico or South Africa, which are some of the large emitters that have not yet officially presented their plans to the UN. The problem is that it also includes the NDC of the United States, the second largest emitter in the world after China, which was introduced by the previous Democratic administration before Donald Trump returned to the White House. Trump has pulled his country out of the Paris Agreement, an exit that will become official in January and that will leave commitments to reduce emissions in jeopardy.
But Stiell, who has defended the validity and usefulness of the Paris Agreement, assured this Tuesday that “market logic dictates that the transition to clean energy will continue at a large scale and pace.” And he has urged countries to take advantage of the economic opportunity that this transformation represents. “Thanks to climate cooperation called by the United Nations and national efforts, humanity is now clearly bending the emissions curve downward for the first time, although not yet fast enough,” summarized Stiell.
