UN climate chief urges ‘bold’ steps to curb carbon emissions
Cutting annual greenhouse gas emissions by 40-70 per cent by 2050 from 2010 could limit warming to 2 degrees Celsisus, UN report says
The UN climate chief on Sunday called on governments to take bold steps to tame carbon emissions after a landmark report said the worldwide aim to limit global warming was still attainable.
“The world can still combat climate change but only if nations raise their collective ambition to achieve a carbon-neutral world in the second half of the century,” said Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
“We cannot play a waiting game where we bet on future technological miracles to emerge and save the day.”
Figueres oversees UN negotiations towards a global pact on curbing climate-altering greenhouse-gas emissions that must be agreed in Paris late next year.
Its goal is to limit warming to 2 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels, but progress has been hampered by bickering over how to divide up the costs.
The report, issued in Berlin by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said the challenge to curb warming to levels deemed relatively safe by scientists can still be met through a “large-scale” shift to greener energy.
