‘Human and Economic Trainwreck’: U.N. Sounds Alarm on National Climate Ambition

The United Nations released a report on Monday in advance of the upcoming COP29 climate conference, detailing just how far off national climate plans are from what is needed.

“The report’s findings are stark but not surprising – current national climate plans fall miles short of what’s needed to stop global heating from crippling every economy, and wrecking billions of lives and livelihoods across every country,” said U.N. Climate Change’s executive secretary Simon Stiell, in a press release accompanying the report.

The new report specifically examines countries’ Nationally Determined Contributions, or NDCs, and comes on the heels of the U.N. Environment Programme’s emissions gap report and its increasingly dire titles. Under the currently submitted NDCs, emissions in 2025 are slated to be about 53 gigatons, or billion tons; by 2030, when the world needs to cut emissions by almost half, instead we will get to 51.5 gigatons. The report points out that these numbers are pretty similar to those seen in its last version; countries are not exactly following the Paris Agreement’s brief to increase their ambition.

“Greenhouse gas pollution at these levels will guarantee a human and economic trainwreck for every country, without exception,” Stiell said, adding that there needs to be a sea change for these national plans if any progress is to be made. “Today’s NDC Synthesis Report must be a turning point, ending the era of inadequacy and sparking a new age of acceleration, with much bolder new national climate plans from every country due next year.”

The next round of NDCs are due in February, but countries are welcome to deliver them sooner; COP29, which has already been described as “extremely bleak” and has seen warnings of the potential for outright failure, starts on November 11. “COP29 is a vital moment in the world’s climate fight, and today’s data is a blunt reminder of why COP29 must stand and deliver.”