Study warns world running out of time to avoid worst impacts of climate change

Leeds: Bad climate news is everywhere. Africa is being hit particularly hard by climate change and extreme weather, impacting lives and livelihoods.

We are living in a world that is warming at the fastest rate since records began. Yet, governments have been slow to act.

The annual global climate change conference of the parties (COP30) is just months away. All of the 197 countries that belong to the United Nations were supposed to have submitted updated national climate plans to the UN by February this year.

These plans outline how each country will cut its greenhouse gas emissions in line with the legally binding international Paris Agreement. This agreement commits all signatories to limiting human-caused global warming to no more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.

Governments must also bring their newly updated national climate action plans to COP30 and show how they plan to adapt to the impacts that climate change will bring.

But so far, only 25 countries, covering around 20% of global emissions, have submitted their plans, known as Nationally Determined Contributions. In Africa, they are Somalia, Zambia and Zimbabwe. This leaves 172 still to come.

The nationally determined contributions are very important in setting out countries’ short- to medium-term commitments on climate change. They also provide a direction of travel that can inform broader policy decisions and investments. Aligning climate plans with development goals could lift 175 million people out of poverty.

But arguably only one of the submitted plans – the UK’s – is compatible with the Paris Agreement.

We are climate scientists, and one of us (Piers Forster) leads the global science team that publishes the annual Indicators of Global Climate Change report. This report gives an overview of the state of the climate system. It is based on calculations of the net emissions of greenhouse gases globally, how these are concentrating in the atmosphere, how temperatures are rising on the ground, and how much of this warming has been caused by humans.