Human emissions of carbon dioxide have gone up for the first time since 2013, according to the UN’s ninth annual Emissions Gap Report, meaning the world isn’t on track to mitigate the worst of climate change’s already disastrous effects. From the report: The report, published on Tuesday, says that while carbon emissions stayed relatively level between 2014 and 2016, carbon emissions in 2017 went up by 1.2 percent. Composed by climate scientists using the most up-to-date scientific data, the report aims to determine whether we’re on track to meet the goals set by international climate agreements, such as the 2015 Paris Climate Accord. The “emissions gap” is the difference between how low our emissions need to be, and where they actually are. The UN report concludes that the world isn’t hitting the emissions targets necessary to curb warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. While the goal is not impossible, it’s unlikely to be met under current political conditions, which have rendered us unable to take significant action against climate change for more than half a century. “According to the current policy and [Nationally Determined Contributions] scenarios, global emissions are not estimated to peak by 2030, let alone by 2020,” the report reads. “As the emissions gap assessment shows, this original level of ambition needs to be roughly tripled for the 2C scenario and increased around fivefold for the 1.5C scenario.”
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