Fossil fuel emissions have hit a record high while many nations have done too little to avert deadly global heating
The world is still on track for a catastrophic 2.6C increase in temperature as countries have not made sufficiently strong climate pledges, while emissions from fossil fuels have hit a record high, two major reports have found. Despite their promises, governments’ new emission-cutting plans submitted for the Cop30 climate talks taking place in Brazil have done little to avert dangerous global heating for the fourth consecutive year, according to the Climate Action Tracker update. The world is now anticipated to heat up by 2.6C above preindustrial times by the end of the century – the same temperature rise forecast last year. This level of heating easily breaches the thresholds set out in the Paris climate pact, which every country agreed to, and would set the world spiralling into a catastrophic new era of extreme weather and severe hardships. A separate report found the fossil fuel emissions driving the climate crisis will rise by about 1% this year to hit a record high, but that the rate of rise has more than halved in recent years. The past decade has seen emissions from coal, oil and gas rise by 0.8% a year compared with 2.0% a year during the decade before. The accelerating rollout of renewable energy is now close to supplying the annual rise in the world’s demand for energy, but has yet to surpass it. “A world at 2.6C means global disaster,” said Bill Hare, CEO of Climate Analytics. A world this hot would probably trigger major “tipping points” that would cause the collapse of key Atlantic Ocean circulation, the loss of coral reefs, the long-term deterioration of ice sheets and the conversion of the Amazon rainforest to a savanna. “That all means the end of agriculture in the UK and across Europe, drought and monsoon failure in Asia and Africa, lethal heat and humidity,” said Hare. “This is not a good place to be. You want to stay away from that.”
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I'm pretty sure those “tipping points” will be reach long before we hit 2.6C
