Climate pledges fall short, says UN
Baku, November 23 (AZERTAC). The promises countries have made to control carbon emissions will see temperatures rise by up to 4C during this century, a UN report concludes.
The report, from the UN Environment Programme (Unep), comes days before the opening of this year`s climate summit.
It concludes there is a significant gap between what science says is necessary to constrain temperature rise and what governments have pledged to achieve.
But with extra political will, it says, warming could be kept much lower.
On Sunday, scientists released data showing that the recession curbed emissions from fossil-fuel burning by only 1.3% during 2009, and that they are set to begin rising again as the global economy cranks up once more.
Unep`s analysis shows that even if governments implement all they have pledged to do, that would "...imply a temperature increase of between 2.5-5C [from pre-industrial times] before the end of the century".
As the global average temperature is already about 0.7C above pre-industrial times, this implies that anything up to 4C during the coming century is possible.
Other news in this section
