UNEP Emissions Gap Report: World on 3-Degree Path – Fossil Emissions Must Decrease

If the Paris Climate Goals are not to remain a utopia, swift action must be taken – with a lot of money and even more measures: This is how the demands of the so-called Emission Gap Report of the UN Environment Program (UNEP) can be summarized, which has now been published.

According to calculations, greenhouse gases with a climate impact of 57.1 gigatons of carbon dioxide (carbon dioxide equivalents) were emitted worldwide in 2023 – a record level. Already in the previous year, a record level of emissions with an increase of 1.2 percent had been recorded for the rise from 2021 to 2022. Now, the value from 2022 to 2023 has risen by another 1.3 percent, it says. For comparison: In the decade before the COVID-19 pandemic, global greenhouse gas emissions were still rising by an average of 0.8 percent annually.

As in previous years, most emissions were generated in the energy sector, accounting for 26 percent, such as in electricity generation, followed by the transport sector with 15 percent, and agriculture and industry each with a share of 11 percent.

Annual report with sobering facts

In the annual review, published a few weeks before the World Climate Conference in the Azerbaijani capital Baku, it addresses the gap between the emissions of greenhouse gases expected in the coming years and the values needed to achieve the Paris Climate Goals. Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, particularly carbon dioxide, play a role in the global temperature increase.

Due to global warming, there is more frequent and extreme weather in many regions, such as heat waves and droughts, storms and floods. This can render entire regions uninhabitable, destroy crops, and thus exacerbate hunger crises. Furthermore, sea levels are rising, threatening coastal regions and small island states.

Global mobilization required

The major industrialized countries, which contribute the most to the emission of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and thus to global temperature increase, are particularly called upon. “Essentially, we would need global mobilization on an unprecedented scale and pace,” demands UNEP head Inger Andersen.

According to the report, time is of the essence: To limit global warming to 1.5 degrees, the world’s nations would need to commit jointly to reducing annual greenhouse gas emissions by 42 percent by 2030 and by 57 percent by 2035 compared to 2019. Currently, the pledges fall far short of this.