- New blow for UK's Starmer as growth data disappoints
- China's top banks to tweak mortgage rates to boost housing market
- Muslim women break taboos navigating east London's waterways
- Nepal dam-building spree powers electric vehicle boom
- More than 60 dead from storm Helene as rescue, cleanup efforts grow
- Dozens missing, 9 dead in migrant boat wreck off Spanish Canaries
- Death toll from Hurricane John hits eight in Mexico
- Storm Helene's toll rises as rescue and cleanup efforts gain pace
- SpaceX launches mission to return stranded astronauts
- Storm Helene kills 44, threatens more 'catastrophic' flooding as cleanup begins
- SpaceX set to launch mission to return stranded astronauts
- Storm Helene kills 44, threatens more 'catastrophic' flooding
- Boeing strike grinds on as latest talks fail to reach agreement
- Iran 'news' sites, hackers target Trump ahead of US election
- US ports brace for potential dockworkers strike
- Japan's speedy, spotless Shinkansen bullet trains turn 60
- US hurricane deaths rise to 44, fears of more 'catastrophic' flooding
- Global stocks mostly rise, cheering Beijing stimulus
- Europe en route for Moon with new simulator, says astronaut Pesquet
- Fireworks forecast if comet survives risky Sun flypast
- Argentina judge orders dictionary to delete pejorative definition of 'Jewish'
- Global stocks rise on rate hopes, Beijing stimulus
- S.African woman turns 118, among the oldest in the world
- UK clears $4 bn AI partnership between Amazon, Anthropic
- Barca fans barred from Champions League away game over racist banner
- Chinese stocks extend surge, Europe higher on Beijing stimulus
- Pope says Church must 'seek forgiveness' for child sexual abuse
- China caps week of 'bazooka' stimulus for ailing economy with rate cut
- Cuts, cash, credit: China bids to jumpstart flagging economy
- France's debt weighs heavier ahead of budget debate
- Iran treads carefully, backing Hezbollah while avoiding war
- Return to sender: waste stranded at sea stirs toxic dispute
- 'Broken' news industry faces uncertain future
- On remote Greek island, migratory birds offer climate clues
- Taken from mother by nuns, victim seeks answers as pope visits Belgium
- China cuts amount banks hold in reserve to boost lending
- Hong Kong, Shanghai extend surge as China optimism boosts markets
- Vietnam president reiterates support for Cuba during official visit
- Drought reduces Amazon River in Colombia by as much as 90%: report
- Stay or go? Pacific Islanders face climate's grim choice
- Florida bracing for 'unsurvivable' Hurricane Helene
- Poverty rises to over 52 percent in Milei's Argentina
- Chloe's see-through look may not be for Kamala Harris
- Champagne houses abuzz over English sparkling wine
- Macron, Trudeau pledge to work for 'decarbonized' economies
- Hurricanes, storms, typhoons... Is September wetter than usual?
- China stimulus, tech optimism boost stock markets
- 'Unsurvivable' Hurricane Helene races towards Florida
- Macron meets Trudeau in Canada as both face political setbacks
- South Korea surges in UN innovation index
Three positive climate developments
While humanity's efforts to curb planet-warming emissions are nowhere near enough to avoid heating the world to catastrophic levels, tentative improvements show that progress is possible.
The climate trajectory, while still poor, has improved since countries signed the Paris Agreement in 2015 and committed to limiting the global temperature rise to "well below" two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, preferably a safer 1.5C.
And the uptake of renewable energy is providing a rare glimmer of hope.
- Heating -
When the Paris Agreement was adopted, the global reliance on fossil fuels -- oil, gas and coal -- placed the world on a path towards a 3.5C rise in temperature by 2100 compared to the pre-industrial era, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said at the time.
Warming of that scale would prompt catastrophic climate disasters worldwide, including the risk of mass extinctions, the melting of glaciers and permafrost that could eventually unleash metres of sea level rise and unliveable conditions across much of the planet.
Eight years on, country commitments to reduce their carbon footprints have pulled that down slightly, putting the world on a path for a still-disastrous 2.5C to 2.9C by the end of the century, according to the UN's Environment Programme this month.
Every tenth of a degree of warming compounds the negative impacts on the climate, but the modest temperature reduction "reflects progress made in the transition to a lower emissions energy system since 2015", said the IEA.
But it "still falls far short of what is needed", the agency added.
- Peak emissions -
Annual greenhouse gas emissions responsible for climate change have risen roughly nine percent since COP21, according to UN data.
That increase led to record-breaking concentrations of CO2, methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) in the atmosphere in 2022, the World Meteorological Organization said last week.
But the rate of the increase has slowed significantly.
The climate experts of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have projected that to meet the Paris goals, emissions need to peak by 2025.
To limit temperature rise to 1.5C emissions need to be slashed almost in half by 2030.
Recent estimates by the Climate Analytics institute find global emissions could peak by 2024 or even as early as this year.
The IEA in its pre-Paris deal assessment predicted that carbon dioxide emissions tied to the energy sector -- responsible for more than 80 percent of CO2 emitted by human activity -- could reach 43 gigatonnes (Gt) in 2030.
But the agency now says that current efforts mean that figure will be 35Gt by 2030.
That difference was "equal to the current combined energy sector emissions of the United States and European Union", it said.
- Rising renewables -
Three technologies -- solar, wind and electric vehicles -- are largely behind the improved global warming estimates since 2015.
"Solar PV is projected to reduce emissions by around three Gt in 2030," the OCED now estimates, "roughly equivalent to the emissions from all the world's cars on the road today."
Wind power is expected to reduce emissions by two gigatonnes in 2030 and electric vehicles (EVs) by around one gigatonne, compared to pre-Paris Agreement scenarios.
Photovoltaics (PVs) and wind power are expected to represent around 15 percent of global electricity production in 2030 - seven times the wind power and three times the PVs that the IEA predicted in 2015.
At the time, fleets of electric vehicles seemed a pipedream. The IEA anticipated that EVs would account for less than two percent of car sales by 2030.
It now estimates that more than a third will be purchases of electric vehicles by the end of the decade.
And the numbers are accelerating. "Clean energy technology adoption surged at an unprecedented pace over the last two years," said the IEA, noting a 50-percent increase in solar PV capacity and a 240-percent rise in EV sales.
The IEA attributes the progress -- unthinkable before the Paris Agreement -- to declining costs and public policy initiatives from China, the United States and Europe among others.
Five-year plans in China have raised ambitions for solar power and driven down global costs.
Off-shore wind projects in Europe "kick-started a global industry" and electric two-wheelers and buses "have seen significant uptake in India and other emerging markets", said the agency.
T.Morelli--CPN