COP30 confronts limits of the Paris Agreement system
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New estimates of global warming's march underscore the stakes of COP30.
Why it matters: This month's United Nations climate summit in Belém, Brazil, will test whether the Paris Agreement remains fit for purpose.
- Sure, everyone says that a lot about these summits. But it's especially true this year.
- Energy costs, limited national spending appetites, AI, trade friction, and White House stances confront the summit.
- Ten years after Paris, global emissions are still climbing.
Threat level: Fresh UN analysis finds that nations' updated emissions pledges to date will barely lower previously projected warming.
- And that's if they're implemented — a gigantic "if."
The big picture: Countries' "nationally determined contributions" (NDCs) would bring warming of 2.3°C-2.5°C above preindustrial levels, the annual "emissions gap" report finds.
- Meanwhile, current policies yield 2.8°C of warming. That's under last year's projection, but still a really harmful amount.
- And some improvement stems from "methodological updates," while the U.S. policy pivot will also erode some of the progress, it finds.
Friction point: "Alignment with [the Paris Agreement's] 1.5°C and 2°C goals would require rapid and unprecedented cuts to greenhouse gas emissions far above what has been pledged," a summary states.
- The 1.5°C goal appears dead (though there's some hope of eventually cooling things back down after "overshoot").
Yes, but: If the floor is unfortunately higher, the temperature ceiling is now lower.
- Back when Paris was adopted, nations' current policies were on track to bring catastrophic warming of roughly 4°C, the UN claims.
The intrigue: A new Rhodium Group study sees a likely warming range of 2.3°C to 3.4°C by 2100, and a mean of 2.8°C — well below pre-Paris estimates, but still a "dire climate future."
- Nobody claims Paris alone changed the equation — there are variables upon variables here.
- But it shows that peer pressure on finance and policy works.
What we're watching: ING analysts, in a note about COP30, see "little cause for optimism at this stage."
- But "corporate climate action remains resilient, but more discreet."
- We're watching how much President Trump might try to influence actions in Brazil despite the White House's decision not to send any senior officials.
The bottom line: "Victory on the big issues in Belém might merely mean establishing a process that could facilitate braver, science-based political decisions in the future — a sad consolation prize," Nigel Purvis, a former U.S. climate diplomat, writes in Foreign Policy.
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