International

Climate plans would allow up to 2.6C of global warming: UN

Photo: Acnur

| By AFP | Patrick Galey |

Country climate pledges leave the world on track to heat by as much as 2.6 degrees Celsius this century, the United Nations said on Wednesday, warning that emissions must fall 45 percent this decade to limit disastrous global warming.

The United Nations Environment Programme, in its annual Emissions Gap report, found that updated national promises since last year’s COP26 summit in Glasgow would only shave less than one percent off global greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.

The world has warmed nearly 1.2C since the start of the Industrial Revolution and already faces increasingly ferocious climate-enhanced weather extremes like heatwaves, storms and floods.

The Emissions Gap report examines the difference between the planet-heating pollution that will still be released under countries’ decarbonisation plans and what science says is needed to keep to the Paris Agreement goal of limiting warming to between 1.5-2.0C.

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A day after the UN’s climate change agency said governments were still doing “nowhere near” enough to keep global heating to 1.5C, UNEP found progress on emissions cutting had been “woefully inadequate”.

It said that additional pledges made since the COP26 summit in Glasgow last year would not even cut emissions by one percent by 2030.

Failure left the world “hurtling towards” a temperature rise far in excess of the Paris goals, it added.

“It’s another year squandered in terms of actually doing something about the problem,” the report’s lead author, Anne Olhoff, told AFP.

“That’s not to say that all nations have not taken this seriously. But from a global perspective, it’s definitely very far from adequate.”

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The report found that in order for temperature rises to be capped at 2C, emissions would need to fall 30 percent faster by 2030 than envisioned under countries’ most up-to-date plans.

To limit heating to 1.5C, the gap is 45 percent.

Under the 2015 Paris deal, countries are required to submit ever deeper emission cutting plans, known as Nationally Determined Contributions, or NDCs.

UNEP found that “unconditional” NDCs — which countries plan regardless of external support — would probably lead to Earth’s average temperature rising by 2.6C by 2100. Scientists warn that level would be catastrophic for humanity and for nature.

Conditional NDCs — which rely on international funding to achieve — would probably lead to a 2.4C temperature rise this century, it said.

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All told, current plans are likely to see a five- to 10-percent reduction in emissions by 2030 — a far cry from the drop of nearly 50 percent required for 1.5C.

‘Missed opportunity’

UNEP said that in 2020, carbon pollution fell more than seven percent, largely thanks to Covid-19 lockdowns and travel restrictions. A fall of that magnitude is needed every year this decade to stay on track for 1.5C.

But it said greenhouse gas emissions in 2021 could end up being the highest on record — some 52.8 billion tonnes — because countries threw themselves into fossil-fuelled pandemic recoveries.

“We see a full bounce-back in emissions after Covid,” said Olhoff.

“It’s a missed opportunity in terms of utilising these unprecedented recovery funds to accelerate a green transition.”

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Separately, the International Energy Agency said on Thursday it believed global energy emissions would peak in 2025 as surging oil and gas prices spurred a drive to renewables.

But UNEP said that while the switch to greener tech in the power sector was accelerating, several industries were lagging behind in the push towards net-zero emissions.

For example, in the food sector, which is responsible for around a third of emissions, dietary changes and cutting food loss could help reduce the sector’s footprint by more than 30 percent by 2050.

‘Avoid as much damage as possible’

Olhoff said the financial sector was “part of the problem rather than part of the solution” to climate change, with hundreds of billions funnelled annually to fossil fuel projects.

UNEP suggested the introduction of an effective carbon price under a global cap and trade system that would push investors to consider the environmental impact of their portfolios.

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It also called for central banks to make more funds available and help create global low-carbon technology markets.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said Thursday’s report showed the world “cannot afford any more greenwashing”.

“Commitments to net zero are worth zero without the plans, policies and actions to back it up,” he said in a video message.

Last year the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said that the world was likely to reach and even exceed 1.5C within decades, no matter how quickly emissions fall in the short term.

Olhoff said that for every year that passed without significant emissions cuts, 1.5C was getting “less realistic and less feasible”.

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But she insisted that governments needed to accelerate the green transition to avoid as much damage as possible.

“The more we learn, it’s absolutely clear that we should aim to get (temperature rises) as low as possible,” Olhoff said.

“Even if that means 1.6C instead of 1.5C, that’s definitely better than 2C degrees, just as 1.7C is worse than 1.6C.”

International

Federal immigration agents kill man in Minneapolis, sparking protests and outrage

Federal immigration agents shot and killed a 37-year-old Minneapolis man during an operation on Saturday, authorities confirmed, sparking new protests and deepening outrage over federal immigration enforcement in the city.

The victim, identified as Alex Jeffrey Pretti, was a U.S. citizen and intensive care nurse who worked at a Veterans Affairs hospital and was widely respected in his community, according to colleagues and news reports.

Officials said the shooting occurred during a targeted immigration raid in south Minneapolis. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) described the incident as an act of self-defense by agents who believed the man posed a threat.

However, videos reviewed by multiple outlets and eyewitnesses show Pretti holding a phone and not displaying a weapon before being pepper-sprayed, tackled by agents and then shot multiple times, raising serious questions about the official account.

The killing comes amid a broader federal immigration enforcement operation in the city and follows another controversial shooting in early January in which Renée Good, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen, was fatally shot by an ICE agent, leading to widespread protests and criticism of federal tactics.

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International

Delcy Rodríguez seeks political agreements after Maduro’s ouster

Venezuela’s interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, on Saturday called for “reaching agreements” with the opposition to achieve “peace” in the country, which the United States says it now controls following the military operation that removed President Nicolás Maduro from power.

Rodríguez, who previously served as Maduro’s vice president, assumed interim leadership after the leftist leader was captured on January 3 during a military incursion that left nearly 100 people dead.

In her first public statements since taking office, Rodríguez signaled a shift in the strained relationship between Caracas and Washington, while also committing to the release of a “significant number” of political prisoners.

“There can be no political or partisan differences when it comes to the peace of Venezuela,” Rodríguez said during an address in the coastal state of La Guaira, broadcast on state television VTV.

“From our differences, we must speak to one another with respect. From our differences, we must meet and reach agreements,” she added.

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The day before, Rodríguez instructed the head of Parliament — her brother Jorge Rodríguez — to convene talks with various political sectors in the country aimed at achieving “concrete and immediate results.”

International

Bogotá and Quito Seek Dialogue After Tariffs and Power Cut Escalate Tensions

Bogotá and Quito will hold an emergency bilateral summit next week amid recent developments that have strained relations between the two countries.

Tensions escalated this week after Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa unexpectedly announced a 30% tariff on Colombian imports. Colombia responded with a reciprocal measure, imposing the same tariff on around 20 Ecuadorian products and suspending electricity exports to Ecuador.

Aware that electricity imports are critical to easing Ecuador’s recent energy crises, Quito further imposed a 30% tariff on the transportation of Colombian oil through its territory.

However, recent statements from the Ecuadorian government suggest that dialogue between the two sides has intensified in recent hours. Ecuador’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Gabriela Sommerfeld, confirmed that active conversations are under way.

In Colombia, segments of the business sector have welcomed the prospect of negotiations. The National Business Council (Consejo Gremial Nacional, CGN), for instance, urged both governments to restore commercial relations, warning that the dispute “puts jobs and regional economic stability at risk.”