World Far Off Track On Fossil Fuel Goals As Exploration Picks Up - Report

The world is nowhere near its pledged target to cut fossil fuel production to keep the global temperature from growing, a report published Wednesday under the UN Environment Programme's aegis showed

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 20th November, 2019) The world is nowhere near its pledged target to cut fossil fuel production to keep the global temperature from growing, a report published Wednesday under the UN Environment Programme's aegis showed.

Almost all of the world's nations signed the 2015 Paris climate deal to keep global heating at least below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels � but preferably at 1.5 C degrees below.

"Countries have made ... rounds of commitments through the Paris Agreement. However, carbon emissions have remained exactly at the levels projected a decade ago, under the business-as-usual scenarios," UN Environment Programme Executive Director Inger Andersen said in the report.

The Production Gap report, a collaboration of several research and academic institutions, found that the world was to produce 50 percent more fossil fuels by 2030 than would be consistent with a 2 C pathway, and 120 percent more than that for a 1.5 C one.

The gap between what was promised and what is to be expected by 2030 is the largest for coal � 150 percent for a 2 C heating and 280 percent for a 1.5 C heating. Oil and gas are heading, respectively, for 43 percent and 47 percent more by 2040.

Fossil fuel combustion has been at an all-time high this year, accounting for close to 90 percent of all carbon dioxide emissions. A UN panel on climate change agreed last year that CO2 emissions from fossil fuels needed to go down by an annual 2-6 percent to keep global warming to 1.5-2 C.

"These declines mean that most of the world's proven fossil fuel reserves must be left unburned. The ongoing expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure points in the opposite direction, however," the report said.

Governments have been incentivizing fossil fuel production to keep exporting or increase self-reliance. The report cites energy analysts that predict investment in fossil fuel exploration and extradition could remain at $1 trillion through 2040.