What Is the Emissions Gap?

Two years ago, 195 countries from all over the world agreed to limit global warming to a maximum of 2°C (and preferably less than 1.5°C) from pre-industrial levels at the Paris Climate Summit. Despite this apparent breakthrough, current pledges to curb emissions are not enough to bring about such a limitation.

The discrepancy between these goals and the current measures being implemented by the COP21 signatories is known as the emissions gap. The annual review from the UN has revealed that even if all parties meet their current pledges, that would only go one third of the way to achieving the overall targets.

Not far-reaching enough

Although the Paris agreement did bring exposure to the issue of climate change and boost global action (as has been evidenced by the growing market for continuous emissions monitoring systems [CEMS] in developing countries, for example), it appears that the impetus has slowed of late.

The UN climate report points out that despite the fact that human emissions have stalled for the third year running, concentrations of carbon in our atmosphere are still at an all-time high. What’s more, it also highlighted the fact that even if every country achieves its own self-imposed targets, global temperatures could still rise by as much as 3°C before 2100.

If we are to achieve the limitation of temperature hikes by less than 2°C, we must not emit more than 42 gigatonnes of carbon by 2030. At present, the gap between this figure and the reality is 11 to 13 gigatonnes. If we’re aiming to curb global warming by less than 1.5°C, that gap widens to between 16 and 19 gigatonnes.

Cheap options are available

Signatories of the accord are scheduled to submit updated plans and targets by 2020, and the UN has called for governments, cities and corporations to “up our ambition, or suffer the consequences,” in the words of Dr Edgar E Gutiérrez-Espeleta, Costa Rica’s minister for the environment.

The experts behind the UN report claim that the technology to tackle the problem already exists and that furthermore, it’s cost-effective and achievable. Among other suggestions, the adoption of efficient appliances and passenger cars, preventing deforestation and replacing trees on a larger scale and increased investment in wind and solar power (including projects similar to those at Lufft in Switzerland) could have a drastic impact on our emissions.

If these solutions were adopted on a global scale, they could bring down emissions by as much as 22 gigatonnes, meaning they could more achieve than our ambitious targets on their own. The authors also called for coal power plants to be decommissioned almost immediately, with between 80% and 90% of remaining reserves left in the ground. By contrast, just over a third of oil (35%) and roughly half of gas reserves must remain untapped, if we are to achieve those targets.