Countries need to take urgent action on climate change

IT should be of little surprise that actions by various nations to rein in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are falling short.

What may be startling is how drastically insufficient global efforts have been. The latest Emissions Gap Report 2019 by the United Nations Environment Programme sounds a grim alarm: Unless countries make deep cuts to their GHG emissions, the world will fail to hit the Paris Agreement's target to limit the global temperature rise to 1.5 deg Celsius.

Because of the past decade of procrastination, nations will now collectively have to deliver deeper GHG cuts of more than 7 per cent a year over the next decade. In a statement, UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres said: "For 10 years, the Emissions Gap Report has been sounding the alarm - and for 10 years, the world has only increased its emissions . . . Failure to heed the warnings and take drastic action to reverse emissions mean we will continue to witness deadly and catastrophic heatwaves, storms and pollution."