ANTALYA, Turkey—Amid upbeat green-tech pep talks and notices for happy hours at the annual United Nations COP31 climate change conference on Thursday, two new reports offered a stark reminder of how far the world remains from containing global warming.
Climate Action Tracker, a nonprofit group that analyzes climate policies, found that the planet is still on track to warm nearly 5 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100, a rise that would devastate coral reefs, disrupt agriculture and forests and melt most of the world’s ice. In a separate bulletin, the European Union’s Copernicus climate change service reported that global warming has accelerated significantly since the 2015 Paris climate agreement.
When the Paris agreement was adopted, the average global temperature was projected to surpass the pact’s long-term threshold of 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit above the preindustrial average around 2045. After another decade of global climate summits, warming is now projected to cross that benchmark as soon as 2029, according to Copernicus.
“This striking change suggests that global warming has accelerated in recent years,” the EU scientists wrote. Even without understanding every aspect of the recent rapid global temperature increase, “It is clear that the ever-growing concentrations of greenhouse gases emitted by human activity in the atmosphere remain the main driver of this trend.”
The current level of warming has already triggered deadly and destructive floods, wildfires and catastrophic glacier collapses, said Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, who is attending the U.N. “Conferences of the Parties” climate talks, for the first time since 2021.
“The climate crisis is a matter of life and death,” she said. “The actions from those in power here are completely detached from reality. As we speak, we are losing priceless lives, ecosystems and species that we will never get back.”
Sarah Heck, a climate policy analyst with Climate Analytics, an international climate science and policy institute, said governments have failed to meaningfully improve the outlook for end-of-century warming.
“Our message is a stark one,” Heck said. “Collective government action on climate change has stalled for the fifth consecutive year.” Efforts to speed up the shift away from fossil fuels have been negated by new oil and gas drilling projects and governments that are “delaying, weakening or rolling back their climate policies.”
Even under the most optimistic scenario, assuming full implementation of existing policies and promises, global temperatures would rise 3.4 degrees Fahrenheit above preindustrial levels by 2100, an increase climate scientists consider extremely dangerous.
While there has been progress on developing renewable energy sources, the “brutal truth is that these positive developments have not yet added up to bend the curve fast enough,” said Niklas Höhne, a researcher with The New Climate Institute. Developing new oil and gas projects is a bit like discovering your food is burning and then turning up the stove instead of turning it off, he added.
Getting into the specifics of the current negotiations at COP31 surrounding global renewable goals, he noted that conference co-hosts Turkey and Australia have so far opposed including the word “clean” in connection with electrification targets.
“It’s very hard to understand, and the only explanation I can think of is their interest in fossil fuels,” Höhne said.
Australia is one of the world’s biggest coal exporters, and Turkey is a major coal consumer, with its power sector still highly dependent on the most climate-damaging fossil fuel. Even as they host this year’s climate conference, neither country has offered any specific plans to transition away from fossil fuels.
Bill Hare, the CEO of Climate Analytics, called out wealthy, developed countries for their lack of leadership on climate action, noting that European Union Commission President Ursula von der Leyen failed to mention anything about transitioning away from fossil fuels during her speech this week at COP31.
“Governments … at this COP have a stark choice,” Hare said. If they continue supporting fossil fuels, “it would consign humanity and our ecosystems to insurmountable economic damage and irretrievable loss.”
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Bob Berwyn is an Austria-based reporter who has covered climate science and international climate policy for more than a decade. Previously, he reported on the environment, endangered species and public lands for several Colorado newspapers, and also worked as editor and assistant editor at community newspapers in the Colorado Rockies.
