New climate reports point to surging global disaster
SUMMIT VENUE Egypt’s Red Sea resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh is hosting delegates to the COP27 summit that will start this week. —REUTERS
MANILA, Philippines — Two new reports on climate change are pointing to an accelerating climate disaster, as their conclusions show the world was falling drastically short of its goal to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Both reports by the United Nations Framework for Climate Change (UNFCC) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) were released ahead of the 27th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP27) in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, which begins on Sunday.
With their respective findings, the UNFCC and WMO aim to convince governments to revisit and revamp their climate plans within the next eight years—considering that 2030 was the target period set by the United Nations when global warming should be eased to 2 degrees Celsius, then 1.5 degrees Celsius.
According to the UNFCC report, climate pledges among the 194 parties (193 countries plus the European Union) under the 2015 Paris Agreement could still put the world on track for the goal of 2.5 degrees warming by the end of this century. The planet has a total of 195 states, including the Vatican and the State of Palestine.
UNFCC analyzed the climate action plans, or nationally determined contributions (NDCs), of those countries under the agreement.
Article continues after this advertisement‘Global catastrophe’
Among others, it found that, despite ambitious promises to cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions dramatically, the world’s nations could only shave off less than 1 percent from their projected 2030 emissions of 54 to 56 GtCO2eq (gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent).An earlier UN report pegged carbon emissions at 42 GtCO2eq as a manageable level to ease global warming.
Article continues after this advertisementA more recent report, the 2022 UN Emissions Gap Report by the United Nations Environment Programme (Unep) released last Thursday, said GHG emissions needed to be cut by 45 percent by 2030 “to avoid global catastrophe.”
The WMO, in its report, noted that atmospheric levels of the three main GHGs—carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide—reached new record highs in 2021. But UNFCC said there was still hope in averting a climate disaster—affirming Unep’s recommendation that NDCs must be improved to strengthen commitments among nations to help reduce global warming.
Sameh Shoukry, Egyptian minister of foreign affairs and COP27 president designate, said the upcoming conference was the right occasion for that goal.
Meanwhile a lawmaker said the Philippines could seek compensation from developed countries for damage caused by climate change-related disasters, such as the destruction wrought by Severe Tropical Storm “Paeng” (international name: Nalgae). (See related story on Page A2)
‘Moral responsibility’
“Climate change kills. There is loss and damage, and countries like the Philippines that are most at-risk due to its impacts have a moral responsibility and the moral ascendancy to fight for the principle of loss and damage,” Albay Rep. Joey Salceda said in a statement on Monday.
He said countries vulnerable to climate change conditions like the Philippines should band together at COP27 and “demand more” in terms of not only compensation, but also relief funding and promotion of clean energy, from “major polluters like the United States and the European Union.”
“Mitigation and adaptation measures are not enough … And coming from a disaster like Paeng, we have the moral duty and moral ascendancy to make demands to the world’s biggest polluters,” Salceda said.
