Facing a potential climate catastrophe, the world’s governments agreed in 2009 to limit a global rise in mean temperature by the end of this century to avert the frightening effects of global warming.
But they face a huge task to meet that pledge, the world’s top climate scientists said Sunday, with data showing that efforts have fallen well short.
Global greenhouse-gas emissions soared to “unprecedented levels” during the decade that ended in 2010, despite efforts to limit carbon from sources such as power plants and cement factories, as well as deforestation.
At a meeting in Berlin, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on Sunday released a report that found that nations still have a chance to fulfill the goal but must aggressively turn away from relying largely on fossil fuels such as coal for energy and replace them with cleaner energy sources such as solar and wind power. To reach their target of 3.6 degrees over pre-industrial levels, nations must work together to lower emissions “by 40 to 70 percent” of what they were in 2010, the report said.
Without such action before mid-century, scientists said, nations will start to face the most debilitating effects of global warming.