On Thursday, the United Nations’ Environmental Programme (UNEP) released a report on what it terms the “emissions gap”—the difference between where we’re heading and where we’d need to be to achieve the goals set out in the Paris Agreement. It makes for some pretty grim reading. Given last year’s greenhouse gas emissions, we can afford fewer than four similar years before we would exceed the total emissions compatible with limiting the planet’s warming to 1.5° C above pre-industrial conditions. Following existing policies out to the turn of the century would leave us facing over 3° C of warming.
The report ascribes this situation to two distinct emissions gaps: between the goals of the Paris Agreement and what countries have pledged to do and between their pledges and the policies they’ve actually put in place. There are some reasons to think that rapid progress could be made—the six largest greenhouse gas emitters accounted for nearly two-thirds of the global emissions, so it wouldn’t take many policy changes to make a big difference. And the report suggests increased deployment of wind and solar could handle over a quarter of the needed emissions reductions.
But so far, progress has been far too limited to cut into global emissions.