UN: Climate pledges put world on 'catastrophic pathway'

BERLIN (AP) — The world is on a “catastrophic pathway” toward a hotter future unless governments make more ambitious pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions, the head of the United Nations said Friday.

A new U.N. report reviewing all the national commitments submitted by signatories of the Paris climate accord until July 30 found that they would result in emissions rising nearly 16% by 2030, compared with 2010 levels.

Scientists say the world must start to sharply curb emissions soon and add no more to the atmosphere by 2050 than can be absorbed if it is to meet the most ambitious goal of the Paris accord — capping global temperature rise at 1.5 Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) by 2100.

“The world is on a catastrophic pathway to 2.7 degrees (Celsius) of heating," U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said.

Experts say the planet has already warmed by 1.1 C since pre-industrial times.

“We need a 45% cut in emissions by 2030 to reach carbon neutrality by mid-century,” Guterres said.

Some 113 countries including the United States and the European Union submitted updates to their emissions targets, also known as nationally determined contributions or NDCs, by the end of July. Their pledges would result in a 12% drop in emissions for those countries by the end of the decade — a figure that could more than double if some governments’ conditional pledges and assurances about aiming for carbon neutrality by 2050 are translated into action.

“That’s the positive side of the picture," said U.N. climate chief Patricia Espinosa, whose office compiled the latest report. “The other one is more sobering.”

Dozens of countries, including major emitters such as China, India and Saudi Arabia, failed to submit new pledges in time for the report.

Espinosa called for leaders at next week's...