The United Nations has warned the window to take urgent climate action is closing rapidly and immediate action is needed to stave off a climate disaster.

The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) has issued its latest version of its Emissions Gap Report 2022 which concluded unless countries dramatically scale up their efforts to counter the climate crisis, the world faces a global catastrophe.

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres (above) issued the grim prognosis and the report that under current Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), the world is headed for 2.8 degrees of global heating by the end of the century.

Simply put, an NDC is a climate action plan to cut emissions and adapt to climate impacts. Each party to the Paris Agreement is required to establish an NDC and update it every five years. Despite a call for strengthened NDCs for 2030, UNEP’s report finds that progress since COP26 in Glasgow last year has been inadequate.

“The recommendations in this report are clear,” said Guterres. “End our reliance on fossil fuels. Avoid a lock-in of new fossil fuel infrastructure. Invest massively in renewables.”

“Commitments to net zero are worth zero without the plans, policies, and actions to back it up. Our world cannot afford any more greenwashing, fake movers or late movers,” he added. “We must close the emissions gap before climate catastrophe closes in on us all.”

Guterres’ warning comes less than two weeks before the UN Climate Change Conference (COP27), where global leaders will discuss ways to tackle the climate emergency, from building resilience and adapting to its impacts to financing climate action.

As climate impacts intensify, the Emissions Gap Report 2022 found that only an urgent system-wide transformation can avoid an accelerating climate disaster. The report looks at how to deliver this transformation through action in the electricity supply, industry, transport and buildings sectors, and the food and financial systems.

It said that updated national pledges since COP26, held in 2021 in Glasgow, UK,  make a negligible difference to predicted 2030 emissions and that we are far from the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming to well below 2°C, preferably 1.5°C. Policies currently in place point to a 2.8°C temperature rise by the end of the century. Implementation of the current pledges will only reduce this to a 2.4-2.6°C temperature rise by the end of the century, for conditional and unconditional pledges, respectively.

“The report finds that only an urgent system-wide transformation can deliver the enormous cuts needed to limit greenhouse gas emissions by 2030: 45 per cent compared with projections based on policies currently in place to get on track to 1.5°C and 30 per cent for 2°C,” Guterres added. “This report provides an in-depth exploration of how to deliver this transformation, looking at the required actions in the electricity supply, industry, transport and buildings sectors, and the food and financial systems.

The window is closing! The world is not on track to reach the Paris Agreement goals and global temperatures can reach 2.8°C by the end of the century.”

The Emissions Gap Report 2022 finds that the world must cut emissions by 45 per cent to avoid global catastrophe. Solutions to transform societies exist, but the time for collective, multilateral action is now.