Three takeaways from UNEP’s “The Emissions Gap Report 2018”

A few days ago, the United Nations Environment Programme released the latest version of its annual global climate action assessment, “The Emissions Gap Report 2018.”

I picked up three takeaways from the report:

(A) “Global peaking of emissions by 2020 is crucial for achieving the temperature targets of the Paris Agreement” ⋯ [Yet,] “global emissions are not estimated to peak by 2030, let alone by 2020.”

(B) ⋯ “this original level of ambition [of the current Nationally Determined Contributions] needs to be roughly tripled for the 2 °C scenario and increased around fivefold for the 1.5 °C scenario.”

(C) “If international cooperative initiatives [of Non-state and Subnational Actors] are scaled up to their fullest potential, the impact could be ⋯ up to 19 GtCO₂e/year by 2030. If realized, this would be instrumental in bridging the emissions gap to 2 °C pathways.”


Figure Above: Explaining takeaways (A) and (B).


Figure Above: Explaining takeaway (C).

Source: UNEP. (2018). The Emissions Gap Report 2018. Nairobi, Kenya: United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). [Full-text at http://j.mp/UNEP-EGR2018]