The latest climate pledges by governments will cause global greenhouse gas emissions to start to fall in the next 10 years, but not nearly fast enough to prevent worsening climate change and extreme weather, the U.N. said on Tuesday.
The analysis by the United Nations’ climate change secretariat (UNFCCC) suggested that, if countries’ plans for tackling climate change are carried out, the yearly amount of planet-warming gases added to the atmosphere would decrease 10% by 2035, from 2019 levels.
The calculation marked the first time the UNFCCC has forecast a steady decline in global emissions, which have consistently increased since 1990.
The projected 10% cut is far short of the 60% emissions drop needed by 2035 to limit global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures – the threshold beyond which scientists say it would unleash far more severe impacts.
That shortfall adds pressure ahead of next month’s COP30 climate summit in Brazil for countries to step up their efforts – even as the United States rolls back climate policies under President Donald Trump.
“Humanity is now clearly bending the emissions curve downwards for the first time, although still not nearly fast enough,” UNFCCC head Simon Stiell said.
“It’s now for COP30 and for the world to respond and show how we are going to speed up,” Stiell said in a statement.
Many countries have been slow to submit more ambitious climate targets, amid economic and geopolitical challenges. The UNFCCC also published a detailed report of the 64 countries who met a September deadline to submit final climate plans, but those accounted for just 30% of global emissions.
To offer a more complete assessment, the UNFCCC said it had produced the global analysis, including targets countries have announced but not yet formally submitted, such as from China and the EU.
That assessment still includes uncertainties. For example, it included the 2024 U.S. emissions-cutting pledge that Trump is expected to scrap, leaving the future U.S. emissions trajectory unclear.
China, which now produces about 29% of annual global emissions, pledged last month to cut emissions by 7% to 10% from their peak by 2035, but did not say when that peak would happen. Some analysts suggested Beijing could deliver far more.
