75 nations submitted updated plan to reduce emmissions, UN report

About 75 nations have so far submitted the updated plans to reduce emissions, ahead of November's COP26 summit, barely make a dent in the huge cuts needed to meet global climate goals. According to the UN climate chief Patricia Espinosa that simply is not good enough, urging governments - including those that have already updated their plans - to come up with larger promised cuts before COP26. A UN report summarising the revised climate action plans - covering about 40% of countries in the 2015 Paris Agreement and 30% of planet-heating emissions - said they would deliver a combined emissions reduction of only 0.5% from 2010 levels by 2030.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has said global emissions must fall by about 45% by 2030 from 2010 levels to give the world a good chance of limiting the rise in average temperatures to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times. Under the Paris accord, nearly 200 countries pledged to keep warming to "well below" 2C, and strive for a ceiling of 1.5C. So far, the planet has heated up by about 1.2C, bringing worsening extreme weather and rising seas. Espinosa said the synthesis report made clear "current levels of climate ambition are very far from putting nations on a pathway" to meet the 1.5C goal. Espinosa emphasised that the report released on Friday was just a "snapshot" of climate action plans to date and another more complete assessment would be compiled before COP26.

Many countries missed a 2020 deadline to submit stronger climate action plans because of disruption caused by the pandemic, with the COP26 summit in Glasgow postponed for a year.The 75 countries that did submit revised plans on time include COP26 host Britain and the 27 member states of the European Union, which are covered by one EU-wide plan. Only two of the 18 largest emitters - Britain and the European Union - had so far presented an updated "nationally determined contribution" (NDC) containing a "strong increase" in their emissions reduction targets, she noted."Other major emitters either submitted NDCs presenting a very low increase in their ambition level or have not presented NDCs yet," she added in a statement.