Global efforts to tackle climate change have made little progress over the past five years, with governments failing to turn their commitments into meaningful emissions reductions, according to a report released Thursday by the independent Climate Action Tracker.
The assessment was presented during the United Nations climate meeting in Antalya, Turkey, where world leaders are discussing the response to rising global temperatures.
The report said collective climate action had effectively stalled for five consecutive years, with positive measures being offset by setbacks. In the first five years after the 2015 Paris Agreement, global efforts had reduced projected warming by an estimated 1°C. However, the latest assessment found that progress had not continued.
Climate change is driven largely by greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas. Countries set their own emissions-reduction plans, known as nationally determined contributions, but the report said current commitments remain insufficient to bring global emissions down at the required pace.
Even if countries fulfil all their existing climate promises, the world is projected to warm by 2.6°C above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century. This is unchanged from projections for 2024 and 2025, suggesting that commitments made last year have not significantly altered the outlook.
Sarah Heck, a climate policy analyst at Climate Analytics and the report’s lead author, said countries needed to strengthen their targets.
The findings come as island nations renew calls for urgent action. Marshall Islands President Hilda Heine warned that continued fossil fuel extraction threatens the future of vulnerable countries, particularly those facing rising sea levels. She also highlighted coral bleaching and the risks posed by increasingly severe storms, heatwaves, droughts and floods.
Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley called on wealthier countries to provide greater financial support to developing nations for climate adaptation and recovery from climate-related damage. She said financial pledges had fallen significantly below previous levels, stressing that promised funding must translate into actual payments.
The report warns that the world is moving towards exceeding the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C warming threshold.
Source: Associated Press, via The New Indian Express
