It’s COP season again and as governments, businesses and green groups gather in Azerbaijan’s historic capital, Baku, for this year’s COP29 climate summit, a bunch of reports have been released with new information on the state of the Earth’s climate and action to tackle global warming.
From the heatwaves that plagued Nigeria earlier this year, to floods in Spain that killed at least 220 people this month, and recent hurricanes battering swathes of the US, these reports explain what’s turbo-charging extreme weather worldwide and ring the alarm bell on the need to move faster in addressing the climate crisis and protecting people from its growing effects.
The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) titled this year’s Adaptation Gap Report “Come hell and high water”, underscoring the need to step up efforts to make economies and societies more resilient to climate change impacts. It also highlights the devastating consequences the world could face at the 2.6-3.1 degrees Celsius of warming projected this century without larger cuts to greenhouse gas emissions.
Here are some key numbers from the latest batch of international climate reports intended to inform and drive the negotiations at COP29:
2024 set to be warmest year on record…
The European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) released new data showing that 2024 is set to be the hottest year on record.
Based on temperatures from January to October, the climate service said 2024 has become the first year to exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels for that period, surpassing 2023 by 0.16C.
Under the Paris Agreement, countries agreed to limit global warming to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius and ideally to 1.5C, but whether those targets have been broken is not judged on short-term data for one year as they refer to longer-term temperature trends.
The global average temperature for the past 12 months (November 2023-October 2024) was an estimated 1.62C above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial average. That is 0.74C above the 1991-2020 average.
The report added that unless the average temperature anomaly for the rest of the year drops to almost zero – which is very unlikely – 2024 is virtually certain to become the warmest year.
C3S Deputy Director Samantha Burgess said this “marks a new milestone in global temperature records and should serve as a catalyst to raise ambition for… COP29.”
… sounding a red alert for 1.5C warming limit
Outlining similar findings in an update to its “State of the Climate 2024” report, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said 2024 is on track to be the warmest year on record after temporarily hitting the 1.5C warming limit.
In the period from January to September, the global mean surface air temperature was 1.54C above the pre-industrial average, with climate warming boosted by the El Niño weather pattern, the WMO said.
That does not mean, however, that the world has exceeded the 1.5C temperature goal set in the Paris Agreement as that refers to long-term warming measured over decades, which remains below that benchmark, the report emphasised.
It said 2015-2024 would be the warmest ten years on record, adding that ocean warming rates show a particularly strong increase in the past two decades and the planet’s seas will continue to heat up irreversibly.
WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo warned that although the world has not yet broken the 1.5C limit, “it is essential to recognise that every fraction of a degree of warming matters. Whether it is at a level below or above 1.5C of warming, every additional increment of global warming increases climate extremes, impacts and risks.”
Over 570,000 deaths in two decades…
As the planet is heating up, the effects are already hitting hard. A report from the World Weather Attribution (WWA) group of scientists says the death toll from the 10 deadliest disasters in the last two decades stands at just over 570,000 – that’s a little above the population size of Cabo Verde.
Even then, the researchers say the number of deaths from climate-induced disasters is greatly underestimated, as there may have been millions more heat-related deaths not reported in the official statistics, especially in poorer countries where people are most vulnerable to high temperatures.
Without doubt, these 10 extreme events were made more intense and more likely by human-caused climate change, they note.
… but the world can be better prepared to prevent these deaths…
While many of these deaths were avoidable, threats are becoming more frequent and severe, in the face of today’s 1.3C of warming.
However, there are actions that can drastically reduce the human impacts of extreme weather. One of these is investing in early-warning systems to alert people of extreme weather ahead of time. According to the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), countries are making progress in this regard.
In its latest “State of Climate Services” report, the WMO says that, in 2024, one-third of national meteorological and hydrological services provide climate services, such as early warning activities, at an “essential” level, and nearly one third at an “advanced” or “full” level.
With targeted adaptation funding, countries in Asia and Africa, in particular, have made strides in boosting their capacity, the report says. But, it adds, there are still significant gaps in the coverage of observing networks in Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and Small Island Developing States (SIDS).
Notwithstanding, the WMO says that with better early warnings and disaster risk management, weather and climate-related reported deaths have decreased by nearly two-thirds since the 1970s.
… and countries need to set more ambitious climate plans to curb global warming…
The economic losses and damage caused by climate change should motivate countries to come up with more ambitious “nationally determined contribution” climate plans (NDCs) due early next year, UNEP urges.
In its Emissions Gap Report 2024, the environmental body said failure to do this would put the world at risk of 2.6-3.1C of warming this century, which would be more catastrophic.
Reducing planet-heating emissions, according to UNEP’s Executive Director Inger Andersen, would not only protect economies but also save lives, prevent damage, conserve biodiversity and enable global average temperatures to fall again if they do overshoot the Paris Agreement goals of limiting warming to “well below 2C” and ideally to 1.5C above pre-industrial times.
So there is some hope. The report shows there is technical potential for emissions cuts in 2030 of up to 31 gigatonnes of CO2 equivalent and 41 gigatonnes in 2035, which would close the gap to putting the world on track for limiting global warming to 1.5C pathway if delivered.
Increased deployment of solar photovoltaic technologies and wind energy would allow the world to deliver 27% of that total reduction potential in 2030 and 38% in 2035, it says.
And action to protect forests could deliver around 20% of the potential by both years. Efficiency measures, electrification and fuel-switching in the buildings, transport and industry sectors are other effective ways to deliver emissions reductions.
… but investments in clean energy remain unequal in the global transition…
Given their emissions-cutting potential, investments in clean energy have increased significantly, approaching $2 trillion per year, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA) in its 2024 World Energy Outlook.
Additionally, the costs of most clean technologies are declining, causing renewables to enter the energy system at an unprecedented rate, including more than 560 gigawatts (GW) of new capacity added in 2023.
But deployment is far from uniform across technologies and countries. The IEA’s “Financing Clean Energy in Africa” report stated that the continent attracts less than 2% of global spending on clean energy, despite a recent surge in investments.
On top of that, markets for fossil fuels and clean technologies are becoming more fragmented. The World Energy Outlook states that since 2020, almost 200 trade measures affecting clean energy technologies – most of them restrictive – have been introduced around the world, compared with 40 in the preceding five-year period.
… “transition” gas won’t save the day, instead fuelling risks for investors…
Meanwhile, the uptake of clean energy for the green transition will cause a dwindling market for oil and gas, particularly for liquefied natural gas, according to a recent Carbon Tracker report. This engenders risks for investors who project an increase in demand for LNG.
Some governments, including in Africa, have been pushing for the use of gas as a “transition” fuel to sustain their economies and bridge the gap as they wait for accelerated investments in renewables.
But a rush to boost gas production for domestic use and export could cause an oversupply by the end of the decade, the report says, as global production capacity is expected to increase by around 50% by 2030.
The report warns that in the face of the massive industry push into LNG, there is a need to reassess assumptions because investors risk generating lower returns than anticipated.
… COP hosts chase fossil fuels despite COP28 commitment…
At COP28 in Dubai last year, an agreement to “transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems” was hailed by some as signalling the ‘beginning of the end’ of the industrial era powered by coal, oil and gas. But that may be premature.
The three host nations of the 2023-2025 COPs are among those promising one thing and doing another. New research by Oil Change International shows that the United Arab Emirates (COP28), Azerbaijan (COP29) and Brazil (COP30) plan to collectively expand oil and gas production by 32% by 2035, threatening the climate limits they have pledged to protect.
And they are not the only ones. The International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) reports that some countries are preparing for an oil and gas exploration splurge in the near term, leading to a strong uptick in exploration licensing.
If fully exploited, oil and gas reserves set to be licensed in the next six months could result in 15 billion tonnes of CO2-equivalent emissions – nearly as large as the combined emissions of the US and China in 2022.
Currently, the 10 countries with the biggest oil and gas licensing plans, in terms of embodied emissions – generated by extraction, production, transportation and use of fossil fuels along the whole supply chain – are China, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Indonesia, the United States, Iran, Angola, Australia, Nigeria, and India, Oil Change says.
… continued fossil fuel investment will mean national climate plans fall short of expectations…
The recently released UN’s NDC synthesis report shows that countries’ current climate plans “fall miles short of what’s needed” to stop global heating.
While the world needs to cut emissions 43% by 2030 to limit warming to 1.5C and avert climate chaos, the current NDCs from nearly 200 countries combined would see global emissions in 2030 fall by only 2.6% compared to their level in 2019, the report finds.
Therefore UN officials and climate advocates are calling for the next round of NDCs, due by February next year – but likely to be submitted throughout the year in the run-up to COP30 – to deliver a substantial increase in climate action and ambition.
… yet finance for stronger climate action remains far too low…
In meeting their NDC targets, countries – especially vulnerable nations like small island states and the poorest countries – need external finance to help pay for the measures required.
But despite a doubling of annual climate finance between 2018 and 2022 – from $674 billion to $1.46 trillion – there is still a need to increase it at least five-fold to avoid the worst consequences of climate change, a new study by Climate Policy Initiative (CPI) shows.
Climate finance flows reached almost $1.5 trillion in 2022, but that still only represents 1% of global GDP – and CPI says this falls far short of what is needed.
By 2030, emerging markets and developing economies may need to spend as much as 6.5% of their GDP to meet climate goals, it warns.
Reiterating the need for more finance, UNEP in its new Adaptation Gap Report says international public funding to protect communities in poorer, vulnerable countries from worsening extreme weather and rising seas is only a fraction – between 7% and 13% – of what is needed, leaving an estimated gap of $187-359 billion.
From cyclone to drought, Zimbabwe’s climate victims struggle to adapt
At COP29, finance is set to take centre-stage as countries are tasked with agreeing a new climate finance goal for the coming years. With demands running into trillions of dollars, a tough fight over the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) is expected at COP29 as wealthy countries try to push some of the responsibility onto new donors, including richer developing countries and the private sector.
Sandra Guzmán, founder and general coordinator of the Climate Finance Group for Latin America and the Caribbean (GFLAC), told a Climate Home News webinar on climate finance prospects at COP29 that the new goal is fundamental to enable higher ambition in the NDCs – and without it countries will struggle to implement their transition plans.
(Reporting by Vivian Chime; editing by Joe Lo and Megan Rowling)