Global climate action stalls for five years as 1.5°C limit slips away

Global efforts to slow climate change have stalled for five consecutive years, with positive steps offset by setbacks and promised plans not being implemented, according to a report released during a UN climate meeting in Antalya, Turkiye.

The report warned that the world was heading towards exceeding the Paris Agreement's warming limit, as island leaders called for stronger emission-reduction targets and more financial support from wealthy countries to deal with climate damage and adapt to rising temperatures.

The independent Climate Action Tracker said, "Aggregated climate action has now essentially stalled for five consecutive years, with positive and negative actions cancelling each other out."

During the first five years after the 2015 Paris Agreement, global action reduced projected warming by one degree Celsius, or 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit. However, the projection has not changed since then, the report said.

Climate change is driven mainly by greenhouse gases released when fuels such as gas, oil and coal are burned. Tackling it requires countries to sharply reduce their annual emissions. Countries set their own emission-reduction plans, with the pace and methods varying among them.

As their collective efforts have not significantly reduced global emissions, the world is now "headed towards an irrecoverable overshoot of 1.5 degrees Celsius" above pre-industrial temperatures, the report said. The 1.5-degree threshold, equal to 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, was adopted under the Paris Agreement.

The report said that even if countries fulfil all their climate promises, the global temperature would be 2.6 degrees Celsius, or 4.7 degrees Fahrenheit, above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century. It said this projection was unchanged from 2024 and 2025.

Sarah Heck, the report's lead author and a climate policy analyst at Climate Analytics, said the latest promises made last year had "failed to move the needle" on projected warming.

"This is still not enough," Heck said. "Countries really do need to strengthen their targets."

Island leaders delivered a similar message at the meeting on Wednesday, with more leaders from island nations expected to repeat their appeals on Thursday. While climate change threatens the world with stronger storms, hotter heatwaves, worsening droughts and floods, island countries also face rising seas that could shrink or swallow their land.

"Every new oil well drilled, every piece of coal extracted is a threat to my country's future. The discovery of new fossil fuel resources is not something to celebrate, but something to fear," Marshall Islands President Hilda Heine said on Wednesday. "No one has the right to pollute their neighbours."

Leaders from Tuvalu, the Bahamas, Antigua and Barbuda, Niue and other island nations were expected to make similar appeals on Thursday.

"It is time to wake up," Heine said, recalling how coral she had seen change from "bright and lush" to white because of bleaching this year. She said the world's response to the prospect of crossing the 1.5-degree warming limit "must be overwhelming or the world we know is over".

Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley said on Wednesday that wealthy countries must not only make more promises but also provide more money to poorer nations to help them recover from climate damage and adapt to a warmer world.

"Pledges are not payments. But even the promised pledges are now 70% below previous levels," Mottley told other leaders. "So the applause in this room, let us be clear, has never rebuilt a single home in any country."

The report's warning that climate action has stalled and projected warming remains unchanged reinforced calls from island leaders for stronger national targets and greater financial support from wealthy countries.

With PTI Inputs

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