Lack of progress continues

Oct 13 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – The world is on track to see “terrifying” climate impacts as stepped-up emissions-cutting plans filed by countries so far fail to limit fast-accelerating global warming, analysts said on Wednesday.

More than two-thirds of about 195 countries that signed the 2015 Paris climate accord submitted a new or updated climate action plan by an extended U.N. deadline on Tuesday, a tracker by the U.S.-based World Resources Institute (WRI) shows.

That is an increase from the just over half of countries who filed plans by the end of July. Nations that updated their pledges in recent days include South Africa and Japan, with the latter promising to halve its emissions by 2030 from 2013 levels.

But other major emitters including China, India, Turkey and Saudi Arabia – which produce around a third of global emissions – have yet to strengthen their targets despite pressure growing on them to do so before the U.N.’s COP26 climate summit.

“They should do so as soon as possible before the COP and developed countries should rapidly step up their climate finance,” said Claire Fyson, a climate policy expert at Climate Analytics, a Berlin-headquartered non-profit.

Fyson said current emissions-cutting pledges and net-zero commitments put the world on a trajectory to 2.4 degree Celsius of warming by the end of the century.

“This is terrifying considering the impacts we are already experiencing at 1.1C,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.