Window to reach climate goals ‘rapidly closing’

The report summarizes 17 key findings from technical deliberations in 2022 and 2023 on the implementation status of the Paris Agreement on climate change and its long-term goals, based on the best scientific information.

Simon Stiell, UNFCCC Executive Secretary called for “greater ambition and accelerating action”.

“I urge governments to carefully study the findings of the report and ultimately understand what it means for them and the ambitious action they must take next. It is the same for businesses, communities and other key stakeholders,” he said.

The synthesis report was published ahead of the “global stocktake” at the upcoming UN climate change conference COP28, which will be held in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, in November-December.

At the stocktake delegates will assess if they are collectively making progress towards meeting the climate goals – and where they are not.

Sultan Al Jaber, president-designate of COP28, emphasized the need to disrupt “business as usual” if the Paris Agreement is to be honoured.

For that emissions must be reduced by 43 per cent by 2030.  

“That is why the COP28 Presidency has put forward an ambitious action agenda centred around fast tracking a just and well managed energy transition that leaves no one behind, fixing climate finance, focusing on people lives and livelihoods, and underpinning everything with full inclusivity,” he said.

“I believe we can deliver all of this while creating sustainable economic growth for our people, but we must urgently disrupt business as usual and unite like never before to move from ambition to action and from rhetoric to real results.”

The Paris Agreement committed all countries to limit temperature rises as close as possible to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.

A report in May from WMO and the UK's Met Office predicted that there is a 98% likelihood that at least one of the next five years will be the warmest on record and a 66% chance of temporarily exceeding 1.5°C above the 1850-1900 average for at least one of the five years. This does not mean that we will permanently exceed the 1.5°C level specified in the Paris Agreement which refers to long-term warming over many years.
The average temperature in August – the hottest August and second hottest month on record after July 2023 -  is estimated to have been around 1.5°C warmer than the preindustrial average for 1850-1900, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service and its ERA 5 dataset.