Major Economies Falling Short on Emissions Target

MAJOR industrialized economies are far off track in helping the world meet the UN’s global warming target, a monitoring group said yesterday.

Carbon pledges made by 31 economies — members of the Group of Seven and the European Union — mean that by 2030 they will contribute only 30 percent of the effort they should, it said.

Further work is needed to ratchet up commitments, said a report of the Carbon Action Tracker initiative, issued on the sidelines of UN climate talks in Bonn.

Just over six months from now, the 195 countries of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change are meant to seal a pact to ensure warming is limited to 2 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial times.

Laborious and complex, the talks have been dogged by finger-pointing between rich and poor countries over their share of curbing carbon emissions.

“Ambitious greenhouse-gas reduction proposals by the G7+EU states are central for a successful outcome in Paris,” said the CAT analysis. “These countries are responsible in aggregate for around 30 percent of global greenhouse gases emissions and 40 percent of global GDP.”

The CAT report looked at G7 and EU submissions to a roster of carbon-curbing pledges at the heart of the envisioned post-2020 world climate pact.

Besides the United States, Canada and Japan, G7 members Britain, France, Germany and Italy also belong to the EU.

A team measured the nations’ pledges against a “fair and equitable level of effort” required from the rich world to reach the 2 degrees goal.

By 2025, action by the 31 rich countries would be only 20 percent of the contribution they should be making by that date, CAT said. By 2030, this would be about 30 percent, it added.

The best performer would be the EU bloc, which has vowed to reduce emissions in 2030 to a level 40 percent below that of 1990.

The laggard would be Canada, whose pledge would bring its emissions to just 2 percent below 1990 levels.

SOURCE: shanghaidaily.com - http://www.shanghaidaily.com/business/economy/Major-economies-falling-short-on-emissions-target/shdaily.shtml

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