STOCKHOLM — The world is nowhere near on track to achieve the ambitious temperature goals adopted in the landmark Paris Agreement on climate change, the U.N. said Thursday in a sobering report that warned of a human tragedy unless governments stepped up efforts to fight global warming.
The U.N. Environment Program said the world needs to slash its annual greenhouse gas emissions by an additional 12 billion-14 billion metric tons by 2030 to have a chance of limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit). That's the temperature goal that countries agreed to in the Paris pact, which takes effect Friday after countries ratified it much faster than anticipated.
To put the challenge into perspective, UNEP noted that the gap is 12 times the annual emissions of the 28-nation European Union's transport sector, including aviation. Full Story