By Ishaan Tharoor
Washington Post

The climate news is as grim as ever.

Despite the stated ambitions of the international community to take action, the world’s nations have shaved just 1% off their projected greenhouse gas emissions for 2030, according to a new U.N. report. The meager outcome places the planet on a path to warm by 2.4 degrees Celsius (4.3 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of the century – below some of the greatest fears of climate watchers but still beyond the safe temperature threshold set at 1.5 degrees Celsius. It precipitates a dangerous future of extreme weather, rising sea levels and “endless suffering,” as the United Nations put it itself.

Two other reports this week from U.N. agencies compounded these woes. An analysis by the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change found that few countries had adjusted their climate pledges since a major U.N. climate conference last year held in Glasgow, Scotland. This year’s conference is set to be hosted in Egypt next month. Another study by the World Meteorological Organization found that methane emissions are rising faster than ever. The evidence raises “questions about humanity’s ability to limit the greenhouse gas that is 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide in the near term,” my Washington Post colleagues reported.

Advances have been made – the world is weaning itself off coal, while the governments of major emitters Australia and United States have recently enacted significant legislation to reduce emissions. But it’s not happening fast enough. “Global and national climate commitments are falling pitifully short,” U.N. Secretary General António Guterres said in a video message this week. “We must close the emissions gap before climate catastrophe closes in on us all.”

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