COP21: What did the major economies pledge to cut?

In just a few weeks, all eyes will be on Paris and the COP 21 climate conference. Over the 12-day meeting, leaders from more than 190 countries will thrash it out and attempt to reach a universal and legally binding agreement to keep global warming below 2°C. That’s the threshold scientists believe we must not cross if we’re to avoid the worst consequences of climate change.

Past climate conferences have not lived up to the high expectations. In 2009, 45,000 world leaders and delegates left Copenhagen with very little to show for their work: “This progress is not enough,” US President Barack Obama said six years ago. To avoid such disappointing results this time round, UN diplomats have asked states to do more preparation ahead of the conference, including outlining the climate actions they plan to take.

The pledges are impressive – so much so that even Greenpeace activists have called them “a good start”. As Michael Jacobs, a climate change expert, has pointed out, what these commitments mean is that even before an agreement is signed in Paris, almost every country has in principle agreed to taking action on climate change. China, for example, has said it will peak emissions by 2030, by which point it plans to be generating 20% of its energy from non-fossil sources. The US has committed to cutting emissions from 2005 levels by between 26% and 28% by 2025. And the EU will cut its levels by 40% from 1990 levels over the next 15 years.

But as remarkable as these commitments are, some fear it still won’t be enough to stop temperatures from rising more than 2°C. Those were the findings of a recent OECD report: “Policies to combat climate change are still not working fast enough.” Which means there’s even more riding on the Paris climate conference than we thought.

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Author: Stéphanie Thomson is an Editor at the World Economic Forum

Image: NASA handout image of Tropical Storm Katia REUTERS/NASA/NOAA/GOES