Governments face an early 2025 deadline to update their national climate plans10 years after the adoption of the historic Paris agreement. Before that can happen, Americans will face a crucial decision on Election Day that will have consequences for the entire world.
If the United States misses that deadline under a president who thinks this is no big deal, it could be a serious blow to global efforts to stop climate change. It is not about the United States being the savior of the world. It's about cleaning up after yourself, considering the planetary disaster you have caused and continue to cause.
What is at stake? Only “debilitating impacts for people, planet and economies”, the last United Nations report on greenhouse gas emissions published today tells us.
We are a fossil fuel giant, a wolf in sheep's clothing
The United States – like almost every other country on Earth except Iran, Libya and Yemen – has ratified the Paris climate agreement, agreeing to work together to prevent global warming from getting worse. The actions the United States takes have a huge impact on the world because it has historically emitted many more greenhouse gas emissions than any other country and remains the second largest climate polluter in the world today. And despite the historic investments the nation has made in clean energy under the Biden administration, the United States remains the world leader. oil and gas producer. We are a fossil fuel giant, a wolf in sheep's clothing even as we agree to participate in international climate talks.
Global average temperatures are approximately 1.2 degrees Celsius higher today than before the Industrial Revolution. It may not seem like much, but forest fires, heat waves, droughtsand storms As a result, everyone has become much worse.
Preventing more severe climate change is not altruism: it is in our own self-interest. Hurricane Helene, which killed more than 220 people and reduced entire communities to ruins as it passed through the southeastern US this month, was driven by rising sea surface temperatures made 200 to 500 times more likely by greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels.
The Paris agreement sets the goal of stopping global warming at around 1.5°C, and the UN report published today shows what it will take to avoid exceeding that figure. It's hard to read it without wincing. It's actually titled “No More Talking…Please!”
“If only the current (national action plans) are implemented and no greater ambition is shown in new commitments, the best we can hope to achieve is catastrophic global warming,” he said. The United Nations Environment Program says. Specifically, warming of up to 2.6 °C is expected over the course of a century if everything continues as usual.
“No more hot air…please!”
Still, the report says it is still technically feasible to keep that 1.5 degree goal alive if countries take quick action. Global emissions would need to fall 42 percent by 2030 compared to 2019 levels. That's no easy task considering the world continues to move in the opposite direction, with emissions up 1.3 percent year-on-year. greenhouse gas emissions, according to the report.
However, there are relatively simple ways to change things: solar and onshore wind energy are already cheaper energy sources than fossil fuels in most of the world. The report also calls for increasing energy efficiency and electrifying homes and buildings.
The harder question is whether policymakers and voters agree with these solutions. The Republican platform says, “WE WILL DRILL, BABY, WE WILL DRILL.” Donald Trump says would try to pull the United States out of the Paris agreement again, which he did during his previous presidency, before Joe Biden recommitted.
The last time Trump was elected president, I was at a UN climate conference in Marrakech, Morocco. “Today, many Africans have woken up horrified that we have in the White House a man who does not even accept that climate change is real: a president who has promised to support more fossil fuels and has promised to withdraw from the Paris Agreement. “said Geoffrey Kamese, then senior program officer at Friends of the Earth Africa, at a press conference during the summit. “The people of this continent will pay with their lives for the results of the American elections.”
Members of the G20, which encompasses many of the world's largest economies, minus the African Union, eliminated 77 percent of greenhouse gas emissions by 2023, according to the new U.N. report. Adding the African Union doubles the number of countries, but only increases the emissions share to 82 percent. This just goes to show that many of the nations most vulnerable to climate change are paying the price for a problem that the world's richest countries are largely responsible for perpetuating.
