A new report from the United Nation’s Framework Convention on Climate Action (UNCCF) has announced that the world’s nations are doing “nowhere close” enough to keep the global temperature increases well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and meet the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement.

What does the report show?

The initial Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) Synthesis Report measures the progress of national climate action plans. The report described the findings, based on 75 countries that account for roughly 30% of the world’s emissions, as falling “far short” of what is required to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement and marking a “red alert” for the planet. Countries were required to submit their reports by the end of 2020, though many failed to do so due with Covid-19 further backlogging civil services. For this reason, the UNFCCC Executive Secretary insists that the report is just a snapshot, and that a clearer picture will have emerged before the COP26 climate summit in November.

Of those countries that did submit reports, the majority did indeed commit to lowering their emissions by 2030. However, the totality of the 75 countries’ current commitments would result in an estimated 1% total drop by 2030 compared to 2010 levels. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts that to meet Paris Agreement’s lower-bound of 1.5°C above pre-industrial temperatures, the cumulative reduction should be around 45%.

Why is it important that countries do meet the Paris Agreements standards?

The historic Paris Climate Agreement, signed in 2015, is a legally binding international agreement that mandates signatories to do their part in the common effort to limit global warming. Its goal is to limit global temperature increases to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels, and preferably only 1.5°C above these.

If temperature levels are allowed to increase by more than this, experts predict that serious and likely irreversible harm will be done to many of the earth’s natural and human systems. While the risks will not be felt equally everywhere in the world, the difference between 1.5°C and 2°C above pre-industrial temperature levels is likely to be significant. These facts are what have urged the UN and many of its members to call for more meaningful commitments from the Paris Agreement’s signatories.

Will 2021 see improvements from the initial report?

The UN’s General Secretary, António Guterres, called 2021 a “make or break” year for global climate action, stressing that global emissions must be reduced by 45% from 2010 to reach the 1.5°C goal, with the landmark COP26 climate summit taking place in Glasgow this November.

The inclination to imagine that reducing emissions by 45% compared to 2010 levels seems unlikely is understandable, given the report’s findings. Three of the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitters failed to submit their NDC reports on time. It is still unclear if China and India will submit reports before the COP26 summits. Additionally, countries such as Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, Switzerland and Australia, failed to improve upon their 2015 plans’ commitment to emission reduction. Meanwhile, Brazil’s plan made no commitment to reducing emissions by 2030.

However, despite the dreary premonitions that the UNCCF’s report may arouse, seeds of hope can be found in the dynamic, if not rocky, field of global climate action politics. The EU27 is the only one of the world’s four largest emitters to submit a plan on time, but Joe Biden’s American government, which has re-joined the Paris Agreement, is expected to submit an NCD plan by April. It is thought that strong American action to reduce emissions will signal to the world that green commitment is the future.

China has also promised to reach carbon neutrality by 2060. Many critics are understandably sceptical of the authoritarian regime’s commitment to the global attempt to mitigate climate change, given the behemoth scale of their brown investment. However, there are others who believe that the Chinese government’s changing rhetoric is not merely verbose signalling, but rather a recognition of the world’s (and its profit-seeking investors’) desire for trustworthy investments that will truly contribute to the fight against climate change.

With this in mind, 2021 may well be a “make or break” year for the effort to reduce global emissions.