Australian Targets

Tuesday, November 21, 2023

Emissions Gap Report 2023: Emissions dangerously increasing and heading for 2.9 degrees C global warming on current policies

This is the 14th Emissions Gap Report. It is published ahead of the 28th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 28).  Definitely a broken record with the United Nations and scientists continually warning of the emissions gap between national policies, pledges (Nationally Determined Contributions- NDCs) and what the science says the targets we need to achieve in reducing emissions.

The report's main highlights are:

  • Predicted 2030 emissions must fall by 28-42 per cent for pathway to 2°C and 1.5°C 
  • Relentless mitigation and low-carbon transformations essential to narrow emissions gap 
  • COP28 and Global Stocktake provide an oportunity to build greater ambition for next round of climate pledges 

UN Secretary General called the emissions gap "more like an emissions canyon.  A canyon littered with broken promises, broken lives, and broken records.  All of this is a failure of leadership, a betrayal of the vulnerable, and a massive missed opportunity."

Until the beginning of October this year, 86 days were recorded with temperatures over 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. September was the hottest recorded month ever according to the WMO, with global average temperatures 1.8°C above pre-industrial levels.  In a record first, 2 days during November exceeded 2.0C of warming based on Global average temperatures reported by .Copernicus ECMWF.

The report finds that global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions increased by 1.2 per cent from 2021 to 2022 to reach a new record of 57.4 Gigatonnes of Carbon Dioxide Equivalent (GtCO2e). GHG emissions across the G20 increased by 1.2 per cent in 2022.

UNEP video summary of the Emissions Gap Report:

The report provides an annual, independent science-based assessment of the gap between the pledged greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions and the reductions required to align with the long-term temperature goal of the Paris Agreement, as well as opportunities to bridge this gap. 

COP 28 marks the conclusion of the first global stocktake under the Paris Agreement, held every five years to assess the global response to the climate crisis and chart a better way forward. The report aims to provide findings relevant to the  discussions under the global stocktake as part of the UN Climate talks.

The next round of nationally determined contributions (NDCs) countries are requested to submit in 2025, which will include emissions reduction targets for 2035. This report looks at what is required this decade and beyond 2030 to maintain the possibility of achieving the long-term temperature goal of the Paris Agreement. 

Failure to bring global GHG emissions in 2030 below the levels implied by current NDCs will make it impossible to limit warming to 1.5°C with no or limited overshoot and strongly increase the challenge of limiting warming to 2°C.

The science of the IPCC 6th assessment report clearly shows the pathways for a safe sustainable planet are narrowing, and that climate action needs to be escalated. The record of extreme weather disasters this year with extreme floods, tropical cyclones, wildfires and heatwaves will only worsen unless we tackle greenhouse gas emissions, and in particular phase out fossil fuels.

The report states:

Due to the failure to stringently reduce emissions in high-income and high-emitting countries (which bear the greatest responsibility for past emissions) and to limit emissions growth in low- and middle-income countries (which account for the majority of current emissions), unprecedented action is now needed by all countries. For high-income countries, this implies further accelerating domestic emissions reductions, committing to reaching net zero as soon as possible – and sooner than the global averages from the latest IPCC report implies – and at the same time providing financial and technical support to lowand middle-income countries. For low- and middle-income countries, it means that pressing development needs must be met alongside a transition away from fossil fuels. 

Ten takeaway messages from Emissions Gap 2023

The report sets out ten conclusions with detailed arguments

1. Global GHG emissions set new record of 57.4 GtCO2e in 2022

2. Current and historical emissions are highly unequally distributed within and among countries, reflecting global patterns of inequality

3. There has been negligible movement on NDCs since COP 27, but some progress in NDCs and policies since the Paris Agreement was adopted

4. The number of net-zero pledges continues to increase, but confidence in their implementation remains low

5. The emissions gap in 2030 remains high: current unconditional NDCs imply a 14 GtCO2e gap for a 2°C goal and a 22 GtCO2e gap for the 1.5°C goal. The additional implementation of the conditional NDCs reduces these estimates by 3 GtCO2e

6. Action in this decade will determine the ambition required in the next round of NDCs for 2035, and the feasibility of achieving the long-term temperature goal of the Paris Agreement

7. If current policies are continued, global warming is estimated to be limited to 3°C. Delivering on all unconditional and conditional pledges by 2030 lowers this estimate to 2.5°C, with the additional fulfilment of all net-zero pledges bringing it to 2°C

8. The failure to stringently reduce emissions in high-income countries and to prevent further emissions growth in low- and middle-income countries implies that all countries must urgently accelerate economy-wide, low-carbon transformations to achieve the long-term temperature goal of the Paris Agreement

9. Low- and middle-income countries face substantial economic and institutional challenges in low-carbon energy transitions, but can also exploit opportunities

10. Further delay of stringent global GHG emissions reductions will increase future reliance on CDR to meet the long-term temperature goal of the Paris Agreement.

Graphs and tables highlighting the Emissions Gap

Total Net anthropogenic GHG Emissions, 1990-2022


 Current and historic contributions to climate change


Implementation gaps between current policies and NDC pledges for the G20 members collectively and individually by 2030, relative to 2015 emissions


Global total GHG emissions in 2030, 2035 and 2050, and estimated gaps under different scenarios


Global GHG emissions under different scenarios and the emissions gap in 2030 and 2035 (median estimate and tenth to ninetieth percentile range)


Global GHG emissions in 2030, 2035 and 2050, and global warming characteristics of least-cost pathways starting in 2020 consistent with limiting global warming to specific temperature limits



Committed CO2 emissions from existing fossil fuel infrastructure, compared with carbon budgets reflecting the long-term temperature goal of the Paris Agreement


The role of emissions reductions and CDR in least-cost pathways consistent with the long-term temperature goal of the Paris Agreement

The report highlights the extent of Carbon Dioxide removal through natural and novel methods and also some of the risks involved: 

Present-day direct removals through conventional land-based methods are estimated to be 2.0 (±0.9) GtCO2 annually, almost entirely through conventional land-based methods. Direct removals through novel CDR methods, such as bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, biochar, direct air carbon capture and storage, and enhanced weathering, are currently miniscule at 0.002 GtCO2 annually.

Achievement of the gigaton levels of CDR implied later in this century by pathways consistent with the Paris Agreement is uncertain and associated with several risks. Increased reliance on conventional land-based CDR is risky due to issues of land competition, protection of Indigenous and traditional communities’ land tenure and rights, and sustainability, biodiversity and permanence risks of forest-based CDR, including from forest fires and other disturbances. Novel CDR methods are generally at an early stage of development and are associated with different types of risks, including that the technical, economic and political requirements for large-scale deployment may not materialize in time. Furthermore, public acceptance is still uncertain, particularly for approaches involving carbon capture and storage, or the open ocean. These risks can negatively affect the prospects for scale-up, despite technical potentials.

A recent report by Centre for Environmental Law (CIEL) posed the risks and problems in offshore Carbon Capture and Storage, as Australia passed a new bill in Federal Parliament on Sea Dumping to allow carbon capture and storage in offshore sites within Australia and other jurisdictions (East Timor).

The Press Conference launching the report


Inger Andersen, Head of the United Nations Environment Program said at the launch:

Humanity is breaking all the wrong records on climate change. Greenhouse gas emissions and the global average temperature are hitting new highs, while extreme weather events are occurring more often, developing faster and becoming more intense. The 2023 edition of the Emissions Gap Report tells us that it’s going to take a massive and urgent shift to avoid these records falling year after year – and to avoid UNEP and others coming back to issue the same unheeded warnings, like a broken record.

The headline figures of the Emissions Gap Report are hugely concerning. Climate change pledges for 2030 put the world on track for limiting the global temperature rise to between 2.5 to 2.9°C above pre-industrial levels in this century. The cuts required to 2030 greenhouse gas emissions are 28-42 per cent for the Paris Agreement’s 2°C pathway and 1.5°C pathway respectively. We are already at the outer limits of the possibility for 1.5°C, with only a 14 per cent chance of avoiding overshoot in even the most optimistic scenario.

She highlighted that we have more than enough oil, coal and gas in production to produce greenhouse gas emissions to exceed the 1.5C and 2C carbon budget. Are major Fossil Fuel producers like Australia listening? It appears not, when we have approved 10 new or extended coal and gas projects in the last 18 months since May 2022.

The coal, oil and gas extracted over the lifetime of producing and planned mines and fields would wipe out almost the whole remaining carbon budget for 2°C – and obliterate the 1.5°C budget many times over. Governments can’t keep pledging to cut emissions under the Paris Agreement and then greenlighting huge fossil fuels projects; this is throwing the global energy transition, and humanity’s future, into question.

The need for Carbon Dioxide Removal was also highlited in her speech, along with the risks in using both CDR technologies.

Carbon dioxide removal, which this year’s report explores, will also be needed more in the future. However, there are many risks with new methods of carbon dioxide removal, one of the main ones being that the technology isn’t in place yet.

The UN Secreetary General Antonio Guterres was equally damning in the lack of national climate ambition calling it a failure of leadership to close the dangerous gap in emissions and phaseout of fossil fuels. His speech in full:

 I thank Inger and all her colleagues at the UN Environment Programme.

Today’s Emissions Gap report shows that if nothing changes, in 2030, emissions will be 22 gigatons higher than the 1.5°C limit will allow.  That’s roughly the total present annual emissions of the United States, China and the European Union combined.

It shows greenhouse emissions reaching all-time highs — a 1.2 per cent increase on last year — when those levels should be shooting down.  And those emissions are shattering temperature records.  June, July, August, September and October were all the hottest on record.  Present trends are racing our planet down a dead-end 3°C temperature rise.

In short, the report shows that the emissions gap is more like an emissions canyon.  A canyon littered with broken promises, broken lives, and broken records.  All of this is a failure of leadership, a betrayal of the vulnerable, and a massive missed opportunity.

Renewables have never been cheaper or more accessible.  We know it is still possible to make the 1.5°C limit a reality.  And we know how to get there — we have roadmaps from the International Energy Agency and the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change].  It requires tearing out the poisoned root of the climate crisis:  fossil fuels.  And it demands a just, equitable renewables transition.

Leaders must drastically up their game, now, with record ambition, record action, and record emissions reductions.  The next round of national climate plans will be pivotal.  These plans must be backed with the finance, technology, support and partnerships to make them possible.

The task of leaders at COP28 [twenty-eighth Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change] is to make sure that happens.  This COP will respond to the Global Stocktake — an inventory of country’s climate plans which will show just how far the world is from meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement [on climate change].

That response is vital.  Voluntary initiatives and non-binding commitments can play an important role.  But they are no substitute for a global response agreed by all.  The response to the Global Stocktake must light the fuse to an explosion of ambition in 2025.


References:

United Nations Environment Programme (2023). Emissions Gap Report 2023: Broken Record – Temperatures hit new highs, yet world fails to cut emissions (again). Nairobi. https://doi.org/10.59117/20.500.11822/43922.

UNEP, 20 November 2023, Call for new records in climate action, Speech by Inger Andersen https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/speech/call-new-records-climate-action

UN Secretary General, speeches, 20 November 2023, Urging Leaders to Tear Out ‘Poisoned Root of Climate Crisis — Fossil Fuels’, Secretary-General Warns Environment Report Shows Dangerous Emissions Gap https://press.un.org/en/2023/sgsm22039.doc.htm


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