Nov 6, 2021
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An examination of 196 country reports to the United Nations reveals a giant gap between what nations declare their emissions to be versus the greenhouse gases they are sending into the atmosphere. The gap ranges from at least 8.5 billion to as high as 13.3 billion tons a year -- surpassing the annual emissions of China.
This video is about 5 minutes long, and describes the gap between what countries report as their emissions versus what data, primarily data from satellites, are revealing:
Excerpt from this story from the Washington Post:
Across the world, many countries underreport their greenhouse gas emissions in their reports to the United Nations, a Washington Post investigation has found. An examination of 196 country reports reveals a giant gap between what nations declare their emissions to be versus the greenhouse gases they are sending into the atmosphere. The gap ranges from at least 8.5 billion to as high as 13.3 billion tons a year of underreported emissions — big enough to move the needle on how much the Earth will warm.
The plan to save the world from the worst of climate change is built on data. But the data the world is relying on is inaccurate.
“If we don’t know the state of emissions today, we don’t know whether we’re cutting emissions meaningfully and substantially,” said Rob Jackson, a professor at Stanford University and chair of the Global Carbon Project, a collaboration of hundreds of researchers. “The atmosphere ultimately is the truth. The atmosphere is what we care about. The concentration of methane and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is what’s affecting climate.”
At the low end, the gap is larger than the yearly emissions of the United States. At the high end, it approaches the emissions of China and comprises 23 percent of humanity’s total contribution to the planet’s warming, The Post found.
As tens of thousands of people are convening in Glasgow for what may be the largest-ever meeting of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), also known as COP26, the numbers they are using to help guide the world’s effort to curb greenhouse gases represent a flawed road map.
That means the challenge is even larger than world leaders have acknowledged.
“In the end, everything becomes a bit of a fantasy,” said Philippe Ciais, a scientist with France’s Laboratory of Climate and Environmental Sciences who tracks emissions based on satellite data. “Because between the world of reporting and the real world of emissions, you start to have large discrepancies.”
The UNFCCC collects country reports and oversees the Paris agreement, which brought the world together to progressively reduce emissions in 2015. The U.N. agency attributed the gap that The Post identified to “the application of different reporting formats and inconsistency in the scope and timeliness of reporting (such as between developed and developing countries, or across developing countries).”
Japan, the world’s third-biggest economy, promises a bolder approach to dealing with the climate crisis. Its prime minister, Yoshihide Suga, announced a pledge to become carbon neutral by 2050 during his first policy address to parliament since assuming office. Suga replaced the previous Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, in mid-September. He...
COP26 climate pledges could help limit global warming to 1.8 °C, but implementing them will be the key - A commentary by Dr Fatih Birol
Excerpt from this article published by the International Energy Agency:
At the COP26 Climate Change Conference taking place in Glasgow, a key question is what do all the new pledges by different countries to reduce emissions mean for global warming? This was a central question we addressed in the IEA’s recent World Energy Outlook 2021 (WEO-2021), and we are continuing to update that analysis.
By the time WEO-2021 was published in mid-October, more than 120 countries had announced new targets for emissions reductions by 2030, and governments representing about 70% of global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions had pledged to bring those emissions to net zero by 2050 or soon after. Despite this momentum, those ambitions still fell short of what was called for in the Paris Agreement that was reached at COP21 in 2015. Ahead of COP26, WEO-2021 showed that even if all announced pledges were implemented in full and on time, the world would be headed for 2.1 °C of warming by the end of the century, missing the goals of the Paris Agreement and hugely increasing climate risks.
Since mid-October, however, more countries have been raising their ambitions. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi strengthened the country’s 2030 targets, and pledged to hit net zero emissions by 2070. Several other large economies have also announced pledges to reach net zero emissions. The announcements have not been limited to CO2 emissions, with more than 100 countries promising to cut emissions of methane – another potent greenhouse gas – by 30% by 2030. As recent IEA analysis shows, rapid actions to reduce methane emissions from fossil fuel operations provide the most impactful way to limit near-term climate change.
Our updated analysis of these new targets – on top of all of those made previously – shows that if they are met in full and on time, they would be enough to hold the rise in global temperatures to 1.8 °C by the end of the century. This is a landmark moment: it is the first time that governments have come forward with targets of sufficient ambition to hold global warming to below 2 °C.
This month, retail and technology company Amazon announced the purchase of 26 new utility-scale wind and solar energy projects, making it the largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy in the world. The projects, located in the United Kingdom, Sweden, South Africa, Italy, Germany, France, and Australia total 3.4 gigawatts (GW)...
FedEx aims at becoming carbon neutral by 2040. It will invest $2 billion to start buying electric vehicles for its fleet of 180,000 vehicles and it will donate $100 million to the Yale Center for Natural Carbon Capture. The announcement is the latest move by companies to slow climate change.
Excerpt from this story from the Washington Post:
Amazon, Walmart, General Motors, and now FedEx.
There is a quickening rhythm of corporations with big carbon footprints pledging action to combat climate change. And their cascade of splashy announcements spans the worlds of retailing, technology and delivery services.
Yet even the prodigious voluntary steps by a portion of the corporate world lack the speed, scale or scientific know-how needed to move the thermometer of the warming planet very far in the right direction without government support or broader behavioral changes in the private sector.
Some of the companies promising to meet that goal and inspire other firms to do the same have signed on to an initiative called the Climate Pledge, co-founded by Jeff Bezos, who owns The Washington Post. Those companies include IBM, Microsoft, Unilever, Johnson Controls, Coca-Cola, Uber and Best Buy. Acciona, a Spanish energy and infrastructure company, went carbon-neutral in 2016.
Carbon neutrality means companies must rely entirely on renewable fuels or offset the burning of fossil fuels with the capture and storage of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Under the hood of the corporate announcements, some limitations are apparent. FedEx, for example, plans to electrify all its delivery vehicles by 2040, but only half of new purchases will be electric by 2025, and many older vehicles will remain on the road for years. Moreover, by 2040 the electrical grids where FedEx recharges its vehicles might still be relying on natural gas, meaning they would not be entirely emission-free.
“There’s an arms race underway for pledges of net neutrality. It’s impressive,” said David Victor, professor of international law and regulation at the University of California at San Diego. “What we’re seeing are big visible companies making announcements. They are bigger, better-organized and more exposed in terms of brand value.”
But Victor cautioned that “these are exploratory big shifts in corporate culture and goals. Making this a reality means doing it with smaller companies and supply chains and stuff that hasn’t been worked out yet.”
Action by big utilities, refiners and concrete manufacturers are also essential if countries are going to meet their own economy-wide goals. Though many of them have already taken steps to reduce carbon emissions, these companies remain the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases.
Natura &Co (parent firm of the brands Avon, Natura, The Body Shop, and Aesop) has revealed its comprehensive sustainability plan called “Commitment to Life.” The new package of sustainability commitments will step up the company’s actions to tackle not only the climate crisis but also the protection of the Amazon...
The EU Carbon Neutrality meeting did not go very smoothly, running over the scheduled time by hours. Still not everyone is onboard.