Governments still showing little sign of acting on climate crisis
Under current pledges, the world will warm by 2.8°C by the end of the century, close to twice the limit they agreed in Paris. Governments are even further from the Paris temperature limit in terms of their real-world action, which would see the temperature rise by 3°C. An ‘optimistic’ take on real-world action including additional action that governments are planning still only limits warming to 2.8°C. Warming estimates have fallen by 0.1-0.2°C compared to the CAT’s September 2019 update. However, the reason is largely methodological changes and data updates rather than any major scaling-up of climate action. As of December 2019, very few governments have announced updated and strengthened Paris Agreement pledges: only the Marshall Islands has submitted an updated NDC, and Chile has published a draft, which is at least a clear step forward from its current target.
