Brussels, 02/09/2015 (Agence Europe) - Ethiopia and Morocco are reported to be only two countries which have so far sent the UN sufficient contributions to the future Paris climate agreement, according to a scientific assessment published in Bonn Tuesday 1 September.
This has been deliberately timed to set the cat among the pigeons, with the negotiators of the 195 parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) meeting in the Rhineland capital until 4 September.
The assessment shows that the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC) so far received by the UN fall a long way short of meeting the objective of keeping the average increase in temperatures on the surface of the planet below 2°C compared to the pre-industrial era. In order to meet this target, the governments need to step up their respective offers considerably in order collectively to reduce global emissions by an additional 12 to 14 gigatons of CO2 up to 2025 and by an additional 17 to 21 gigatons of CO2 up to 2030.
Of the 56 INDCs submitted to the Secretariat of the UNFCCC as of 1 September, 15 contributions submitted by 29 governments cover 64.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions. These are the 15 INDCs assessed by Climate Action Tracker (CAT), a consortium of four research institutes (Climate Analytics, PIK, ECOFYS, New Climate Institute).
Seven have been rated “inadequate”: those of Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea and Russia, as they do not represent a fair contribution.
Six INDCs have been rated “medium”. These are the contributions of China, the United States, the EU, Mexico, Norway and Switzerland.
The contributions of Ethiopia and Morocco are the only ones to have been rated “sufficient”, as they are compatible with the 2°C target, but CAT states that it has not assessed the contribution of Gabon.
The total combined emissions forecasts of the INDCs show a very different situation in 2025 from that of 2030. If the INDCs currently on the table for 2030 do not change, it will be virtually impossible to meet the objective of 2°C, as the emissions reduction rates would need to exceed 5% a year after 2030, and would make holding warming below 1.5°C almost impossible, the study stresses.
CAT notes that despite the number of INDCs submitted this year, there is not very much difference today from the forecast of emissions published in Lima in December 2014 (which covered the draft INDCs of the US, the EU and China), specifically estimated global warming of between 2.9 and 3.1 degrees. (Aminata Niang)