2015 Paris Agreement not honoured by most G20 countries; nations have 'no plan', warns CAT

The latest analysis of climate change unveiled by watchdog Climate Action Tracker (CAT) on September 14 revealed that none of the G20 countries have a proper plan to meet the 2015 Paris Agreement aim, as per a CNN report. The analysis, that observed policies of 36 countries along with European Union members, said that the negligent list of countries includes even the world's largest economies. The 2015 Paris accord was agreed upon by 190 countries to limit the Earth's warming to a maximum of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

The analysis by CAT stated that the countries observed makeup 80% of the world's total carbon emissions but a developing country like the Gambia was the only one in the "1.5 compatible" category. Although, there might be other developing countries that were not analyzed, but are in alignment with the accord, said CNN's report. CAT revealed that six countries, including the UK, are in the "nearly sufficient" category as its policies do not completely meet the benchmark but can get aligned with little improvements.

Meanwhile, policies of the U.S, Japan and other European Union countries were insufficient to meet the 1.5-degree threshold. This is still an improvement for the U.S as it earlier was put in the "critically-insufficient" category under Donald Trump's presidency and has been upgraded to "almost sufficient", said CNN. 

Countries like India, Saudi Arabia and Turkey too are in a bad light as they also missed the July 31 deadline to submit their respective and mandatory emissions-cutting pledges technically called Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). As per Climate Analytics CEO and CAT partner Bill Hare, countries like Australia, Brazil, Indonesia Mexico, New Zealand, Russia, Singapore, Switzerland and Vietnam are the most concerning. They submitted the same or even less ambitious 2030 targets than those they did in 2015, he said.

90% coal must be abandoned to achieve half the goal

An earlier study published in the journal Nature had suggested that 60% of unextracted natural gas and oil and nearly 90% of coal must be abandoned in order to achieve even half the possibility of fulfilling the agreement. The study also estimated that global gas and oil production must decline by three% every year till 2050 and the extraction-production process must have crossed its peak phase now or by the next decade. However, the boycott estimates after 2050 might reduce as we move towards 2100, said the study.

(IMAGE: UNSPLASH)