The United Nations (UN) has said that countries need to reduce carbon emissions by five times in order to avoid a global temperature rise of over 1.5 degrees Celsius.
The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) has released its annual emissions gap report, which calls for countries to increase initiatives in reducing their carbon emissions to avoid further global warming. The report indicated that if all current targets are met, the world will warm by more than 3 degrees Celsius by 2100.
The report authors claim that wealthier countries have failed to cut their emissions fast enough, with 15 of the 20 wealthiest countries having no timeline to achieve a net zero emission target. The UNEP report was released following the World Meteorological Organization's (WMO) report on greenhouse gas concentrations.
The emissions gap report examined the difference between how much carbon needs to be reduced to avoid dangerous warming and what will be the future state if the countries achieve their targets in the Paris climate agreement.
The UN assessment stated: "The summary findings are bleak. Countries collectively failed to stop the growth in global greenhouse gas emissions, meaning that deeper and faster cuts are now required."
Based on the report, emissions have increased by 1.5% per year in the last decade and reached a total of 55 gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2018. This trend will cause the global temperature to rise by 3.2 degrees Celsius by the end of the century.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has issued a warning that a 1.5 degree surge in temperature this century would cause damaging effects for human, plant and animal life across the world.
In order to address this and achieve the target, the report said that the world needs to cut emissions by 7.6% every year for the next 10 years. UNEP executive director Inger Andersen said: "Our collective failure to act early and hard on climate change means we now must deliver deep cuts to emissions - over 7% each year, if we break it down evenly over the next decade."
