World on pace to warm at alarming rate due to fossil fuels: UN report

Earth continues to warm at an alarming Pace according to a new report by the United Nations the document says the world is on track to warm by nearly 3 degrees Celsius this Century that’s almost twice as high as the goal of 1.5 degrees that was set by the Paris

Climate Accords cbc’s Darius mavi has more on what’s in that report Darius take us through what we’re learning tonight so this is the annual emissions Gap report that is put out every year by the UN and as you said this is highlighting that we are currently on

Track to hit 3° C of warming by the end of this Century now if we were to try and meet the 1.5 degree uh uh goal that was set out less than 10 years ago in 2015 with the Paris climate Accords we would need to reduce our emissions by 22

Billion metric tons over 40% of what we are currently emitting now those cuts would need to be made by 2030 which we are by no means on track to do without the most aggressive climate action we’ve ever seen we are not going to hit those

Goals and uh even that will only give us a 50% chance a coin toss of meeting that 1.5° c warming goal now you might notice that there are many reports coming out right now in advance of cop 28 the next time we’ll see world leaders meet for uh

To discuss the climate goals in Dubai and so we’re going to see many reports we just saw one out last week talking about the health risks that come with 2 degrees Celsius warming and again we’re on track for three right now and I do also want to mention the report has

Highlighted how important is that wealthy countries like Canada do reduce their emissions because we have contributed the bulk of emissions even now we are emitting more per capita than China and India combined and if you look historically uh it’s going to be decades at current emissions rates for China and

India to catch up to the amount the US and Canada have emitted so and those emissions are shattering temperature records June July August September and October were all the hottest on records present Trends are racing our planet down a dead end 3° temperature rise in short the report shows that the

Emissions Gap is more like an emissions Canyon a canyon littered with broken promises broken lives and broken records Darius as you say this is an annual report so how is this year’s report different from what we’ve seen in the past largely it’s because of the context around uh this report now uh in

This case they had the benef of having seen the destruction that we’ve seen the last few years the records that we’ve seen smashed and one climate scientist said this is a whisper of what’s to come and what is coming in the future will be a roar now that is seems dramatic but

Take a look here you can see that just this past weekend for the first time we saw a day in which the global temperatures exceeded 2° C above pre-industrial levels twice in a row uh that is extremely alarming especially when you consider how how many days this

Past year have been above uh the 1.5° warming limit we can also take a look here you can see the hottest 12 months on record were recorded from November 2022 to October 2023 still in in a linia event so with elino coming those temperatures expected to spike even more

Here you can see that around the world we’ve seen record-breaking temperatures uh for over a 100 days in many places including here on BC’s coast and uh including even if we look right now you can see that temperatures tomorrow expected to be uh breaking climate records this is uh the climate shift

Index published by climate Central if you take a look here you can see that Brazil tomorrow expected to see temperatures made five times more likely as a result of climate change as they have been for months now and that’s really illustrating what we’ve seen recently with these extreme heat events

Around the world including just recently in Brazil we’ve seen uh death as a result of the temperatures above 40° CSI for months now uh it’s just it’s it’s just a taste of what’s to come as a result of climate change so the report really drove that point home as well thanks

Darius okay for more on this we’re joined by Caroline brouette she is the executive director of climate Action Network Canada she’s also attending cop 28 this year and we have reached her in Montreal thank you for your time thanks for having me Caroline I I I fear that viewers will

Will hear this uh latest statistics this latest uh report which is an annual report and they’ll they’ll feel like they’ve heard this before that the target was set we haven’t reached it um it’s it’s so difficult they’ll hear the chorus of voices saying that it’s h it’s

Too difficult to reach maybe it was too ambitious a Target um for fear that that’s what somebody out there is is thinking when we say this why should they care I won’t lie as a climate activist it is definitely increasingly difficult to find something new to say to these

Reports showing that that were not on track right there’s been a series of them recently and it feels like report after report after report shows us this growing gap between what we’re supposed to do to limit Waring to safe levels and what we’re actually doing but what this

Report also tells us is that climate policy is working before the Paris agreement emissions were scheduled to rise by 16% by 2030 and now we’re at 3% they’re still increasing but we’re starting to build the curve now what’s truly needed is to tackle the elephant in the room and the reason why we

Haven’t been able to limit um emissions further which is the growing uh emissions of the oil and gas sector so let’s talk about that oil that elephant in the room you’re saying that’s the oil and gas sector uh and that that’s what’s keeping us from the 1.5 Target and

Keeping us at this 3% Mark literally the only thing keeping us from reaching this crucial threshold of 1.5 degrees above which if we might expose ourselves to the most catastrophic impacts of of of climate change is the fact that there’s an industry that has been holding us back

And Del delaying and deluding policy both at the international level and here in Canada we do have an opportunity with a cap on oil and gas emissions that was promised by prime minister Trudeau um at cop 26 in Glasgow however we still haven’t seen this policy being um

Published forward so we’re really hoping to see it before cop 28 so that Canada shows that it is doing its part of that effort to uh adjust transition away from all fossil fuels which will be a big topic of discussion at cop 28 talk to me

About cop 28 is going to be in Dubai um I think there was I remember so much attention being paid uh to to Glasgow and all of the policies that were coming out of that uh do you feel there will be that same level of attention um around

The world to what is going to come out of cop 28 and what do you what do you expect to come from that cop 28 is an important cop because it forces the world to take a moment of Reckoning through the global stock take which means that for the first time the

World will be taking a look at what we’ve accomplished so far at this Gap that we’ve been talking about and that has been highlighted in so many reports and what we’re actually going to do about it so because of that process it is an important cop that the world’s

Eyes will be on I would also highlight that this big question around fossil fuels and the grip they’ve been having not only on our imagination but on our policy will be at the center of the conversation as um we’re seeing growing momentum from across the world 80 plus

Countries who are supporting this idea of a phase out away from unabated uh fossil fuels hopefully all fossil fuels um and that’s big because believe it or not it has never been discussed in a cop text we’ve seen mentions of of tackling fossil fuel subsidies or tackling Co

Coal but what these reports have been telling us is that truly we need to tackle all fossil fuels oil gas and coal and their grip on our policy whenever I do these interviews and whenever I listen to interviews with uh experts like yourself I as an individual I’m wondering what more what

More am I supposed to be doing on an individual basis and I suspect others who are watching are are wondering that too you say we’ve gone from what was going to be 16 we’re now down to three which is arguably I think a reason to perhaps celebrate uh we need to get it

Down to 1.5 and I’m I’m thinking based on what you’re saying there’s maybe not much more on an individual basis that can be done other than are you talking to people about what they do at The Ballot Box maybe in terms of their next action toward climate

Change just to kind of paint a clear picture of the challenge before us I said that now emissions were increasing by 3% from now until 2030 if we want to limit warming to 1.5 degrees we need to halve emissions to reduce them by 50% by

20 30 and so the scale and the speed of the challenge before us as you say means that this is a political Challenge and being part of a democratic process means not only talking about climate action and flexing our climate muscles at the ballot books but really making sure that

Our elected officials are aware that we care about this issue that we’re concerned about this issue um day in and and day out and I would add that we are more powerful than some of our individual parts and it’s by joining others who are acting in your community

In your neighborhood that um we can build power large enough that it finally confronts the fossil fuels industry grass on policy in Canada and Beyond Carolyn Brule executive director of climate Action Network Canada thank you for your time thanks for having me

A new United Nations report says the world is on pace to warm by as much as 2.9 C by the end of the century, nearly double the international target agreed upon less than a decade ago. Caroline Brouillette, executive director of Climate Action Network Canada, weighs in on this report.

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