Planet Earth is getting hotter, and that is beyond dispute. The political debate has been over whether that change was natural or man-made. That debate only matters to the extent that the outcome will allow the human race to influence what is going on. This journal is convinced the changes are almost entirely caused by human economic activity. That means that the human race has within its power the ability to halt and reverse the warming of the planet. The United National Environmental Program has issued its annual report, and the news is grim. Humanity has failed to address the problem, and as a result, the target of just a 1.5 degree Celsius increase will be exceeded by at least 0.2 degrees.
The UNEP says “The 2026 Emissions Gap Report lays out the cuts to emissions needed (by 2030, 2035 and 2040) to get on a return pathway — finding that the cuts needed are far above what current Nationally Determined Contributions deliver. However, the report finds that it is possible to close this emissions gap — pointing to many successful climate policies that have already delivered real-world emissions cuts and could be scaled up globally to accelerate action.”
The report acknowledges that the nations of the world are making some effort to address the situation. Moving away from fossil fuels toward green energy is having an effect; it is slowing the rate at which the world would otherwise warm. NPR notes, “The U.S. sticks out as the only major economy where planet-warming pollution increased dramatically last year, the report notes.”
The network went on to add, “It finds that last year, the U.S. was tied with Russia as the G20 countries with the most per capita emissions of carbon dioxide and other planet-warning gases. China emits significantly more total greenhouse gases each year than the U.S., but has more than four times the population.”
Like all maintenance projects, a little work now could save a lot of work later. Sadly, it is already later. The opportunity the world had to move away from fossil fuels back in the 1980s after the oil shocks of the preceding decade was wasted. The war to liberate Kuwait added to the desire for oil. That led to the war with Iraq and now Iran. Meanwhile, the world has decided that data centers that use electricity almost faster than it is generated are must-haves.
“We’ve spent decades postponing cuts to emissions and now we’re facing the consequences,” says Anne Olhoff, the Director of the UNEP-Copenhagen Climate Centre. “The world can still attain the goals of the Paris Agreement but we must work hard to not only meet but surpass our most ambitious climate targets. The longer we wait, the larger the risk that we jeopardize the temperature goal.”
The UNEP report says, “If we continue with business as usual, we have no hope of achieving the 1.5°C target. Under current government policies, warming would reach 2.8°C by the end of the century, a number widely considered disastrous. And the temperature rise wouldn’t stop there.”
The most intimidating statement is “every five years of carbon dioxide emissions at current levels will push warming up by around 0.1°C.”
At some point, the consequences will force action, but it would be better if humanity made its moves now.