The world is on a path to get 1.8 degrees Celsius (3.2 Fahrenheit) warmer than it is now, but could trim half a degree of that projected future heating if countries do everything they promise to fight climate change, a United Nations report said Thursday.
But it still won't be near enough to curb warming's worst impacts such as nastier heat waves, wildfires, storms and droughts, the report said.
Under every scenario but the “most optimistic” with the biggest cuts in fossil fuels burning, the chance of curbing warming so it stays within the internationally agreed-upon limit "would be virtually zero," the United Nations Environment Programme's annual Emissions Gap Report said. The goal, set in the 2015 Paris Agreement, is to limit human-caused warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times. The report said that since the mid-1800s, the world has already heated up by 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.3 degrees Fahrenheit), up from previous estimates of 1.1 or 1.2 degrees because it includes the record heat last year.
Instead the world is on pace to hit 3.1 degrees Celsius (5.6 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times. But if nations somehow do all of what they promised in targets they submitted to the United Nations that warming could be limited to 2.6 degrees Celsius (4.7 degrees Fahrenheit), the report said.
In that super-stringent cuts scenario where nations have zero net carbon emissions after mid-century, there's a 23% chance of keeping warming at or below the 1.5 degrees goal. It's far more likely that even that optimistic scenario will keep warming to 1.9 degrees above pre-industrial times, the report said.
“The main message is that action right now and right here before 2030 is critical if we want to lower the temperature,” said report main editor Anne Olhoff, an economist and chief climate advisor to the UNEP Copenhagen Climate Centre. “It is now or never really if we want to keep 1.5 alive.”
Without swift and dramatic emission cuts “on a scale and pace never seen before,” UNEP Director Inger Andersen said “the 1.5 degree C goal will soon be dead and (the less stringent Paris goal of) well below 2 degrees C will take its place in the intensive care unit.”
Olhoff said Earth's on a trajectory to slam the door on 1.5 sometime in 2029.
“Winning slowly is the same as losing when it comes to climate change,” said author Neil Grant of Climate Analytics. “And so I think we are at risk of a lost decade.”
One of the problems is that even though nations pledged climate action in their targets submitted as part of the Paris Agreement, there's a big gap between what they said they will do and what they are doing based on their existing policies, report authors said.
The world's 20 richest countries — which are responsible for 77% of the carbon pollution in the air — are falling short of their stated emission-cutting goals, with only 11 meeting their individual targets, the report said.
Emission cuts strong enough to limit warming to the 1.5 degree goal are more than technically and economically possible, the report found. They just aren't being proposed or done.
The report ”shows that yet again governments are sleepwalking towards climate chaos," said climate scientist Bill Hare, CEO of Climate Analytics, who wasn't part of the report.
Another outside scientist, Johan Rockstrom, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, said the report confirms his worst concerns: “We are not making progress and are now following a 3.1 degree path, which is, with next to zero uncertainty, a path to disaster."
Both the 3.1 degree and 2.6 degree calculations are a tenth of a degree Celsius warmer than last year’s version of the UN report, which experts said is within the margin of uncertainty.
Mostly the problem is “there's one year less time to cut emissions and avoid climate catastrophe,” said MIT's John Sterman, who models different warming scenarios based on emissions and countries policies. “Catastrophe is a strong word and I don't use it lightly,” he said, citing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's latest report saying 3 degrees of warming would trigger severe and irreversible damage.
The report focuses on what's called an emissions gap. It calculates a budget of how many billions of tons of greenhouse gases — mostly carbon dioxide and methane — the world can spew and stay under 1.5 degrees, 1.8 degrees and 2 degrees of warming since pre-industrial times. It then figures how much annual emissions have to be slashed by 2030 to keep at those levels.
To keep at or below 1.5 degrees, the world must slash emissions by 42%, and to keep at or below 2 degrees, the cut has to be 28%, the report, named, “No more hot air... please !” said.
In 2023, the world spewed 57.1 billion metric tons (62.9 billion U.S. tons) of greenhouse gases, the report said. That’s 1,810 metric tons (1,995 U.S. tons) of heat-trapping gases a second.
“There is a direct link between increasing emissions and increasingly frequent and intense climate disasters,” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a video messaged released with the report. “We're playing with fire, but there can be no more playing for time. We're out of time.”
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A cow grazes in a pasture at dawn as a wind turbine operates in the distance at the Buckeye Wind Energy wind farm, Monday, Sept. 30, 2024, near Hays, Kan. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
Pumpjacks operate in a pasture, Monday, Sept. 30, 2024, near Hays, Kan. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
Augusta, N.J. (AP) — Family, friends and followers of Fethullah Gülen are gathering Thursday to pay respects to the influential Turkish spiritual leader and Islamic scholar who died this week in self-exile in the United States.
Gülen, who inspired a global social movement while facing unproven allegations that he orchestrated a failed 2016 military coup against Turkey's president, died Sunday at a Pennsylvania hospital. He was in his 80s.
Under a heavy police presence, thousands of people filled a small stadium in North New Jersey for a prayer service. The service was conducted largely in Turkish, with Islamic prayers and readings from the Quran.
“We all feel like we’ve lost a father,” Usame Tunagar, a longtime associate, told mourners. Followers who served as pallbearers either studied under Gülen directly or attended a school inspired by his movement. They walked into the stadium, carrying the casket, which was draped in a green covering and inscribed in yellow with verses from the Quran.
Organizers said a brother and a sister were in attendance. Another brother is imprisoned in Turkey.
No memorial services are expected to take place in Turkey. Publicly mourning, glorifying or otherwise sympathizing with Gülen may lead to imprisonment on charges of promoting and supporting terrorism.
After the service in New Jersey, Gülen is to be buried in Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania, on the grounds of the Chestnut Retreat Center, a sprawling, gated compound in the Pocono Mountains where he lived and worked for a quarter-century. A much smaller circle of family and close friends was expected at the burial.
“This is a solemn time of mourning, reflection, and prayer,” the Alliance for Shared Values said in a statement. The New York-based group promotes Gülen’s work in the U.S. “Mr. Gülen’s legacy transcends the circumstances of his life. He stands as a remarkable religious and intellectual thinker whose impact will be felt for generations.”
Gülen had long been one of Turkey’s most important scholars, with millions of followers in his native country and around the world. He had lived in the United States since 1999, when he came to seek medical treatment.
His philosophy blended Sufism — a mystical form of Islam — with staunch advocacy of democracy, education, science and interfaith dialogue. His acolytes built a loosely affiliated global network of charitable foundations, professional associations, businesses and schools in more than 100 countries, including 150 taxpayer-funded charter schools throughout the United States.
The religious leader began as an ally of Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan but became a foe. He called Erdogan an authoritarian bent on accumulating power and crushing dissent. Erdogan cast Gülen as a terrorist, accusing him of masterminding the attempted coup on July 15, 2016, when factions within the military used tanks, warplanes and helicopters to try to overthrow the government.
A total of 251 people were killed and around 2,200 others were wounded. Around 35 alleged coup plotters were killed.
Shortly after the coup attempt, the normally reclusive cleric summoned reporters to his living quarters at the Pennsylvania compound to deny any knowledge or involvement in its planning. He said he wouldn’t have returned to Turkey even if the coup had succeeded, fearing he would be “persecuted and harassed.”
“This is a tranquil and clean place and I enjoy and I live my freedom here,” Gülen said of the secluded Islamic retreat, founded by Turkish Americans, that he adopted as his home and where he would be buried eight years later. “Longing for my homeland burns in my heart, but freedom is also equally important.”
In Turkey, Gülen’s movement — sometimes known as Hizmet, Turkish for “service” — has been subjected to a broad crackdown. The government arrested tens of thousands of people for their alleged link to the coup plot, sacked more than 130,000 suspected supporters from civil service jobs and more than 23,000 from the military, and closed hundreds of businesses, schools and media organizations tied to Gülen.
The Turkish government reacted to his death this week by vowing to keep up the pressure on the Gülenist movement. Erdogan said Gülen had suffered a “dishonorable death” and likened him to a “demon in human form.” He pledged the movement would be “completely eliminated.”
Gulen was never charged with a crime in the U.S., and the U.S. government had rejected Turkey’s demands to extradite him. The cleric consistently denounced terrorism as well as the coup plotters.
A casket bearing the body of Fethullah Gülen, a Muslim cleric living in exile in the United States who faced unproven allegations that he orchestrated a failed 2016 coup in Turkey, sits in Skylands Stadium in Augusta, N.J., where thousands gathered for funeral prayers, Thursday, Oct. 24. 2024. (AP Photo/Mike Rubinkam)
Thousands gather to morn the death of Fethullah Gülen, a Muslim cleric living in exile in the United States who faced unproven allegations that he orchestrated a failed 2016 coup in Turkey, in Skylands Stadium in Augusta, N.J., on Thursday, Oct. 24. 2024. (AP Photo/Mike Rubinkam)
Mourners carry the casket of Fethullah Gülen, an influential Turkish spiritual leader and Islamic scholar who died this week in self-exile in the United States, at a funeral prayer service, Thursday, Oct, 24, 2024, in Augusta, N.J. (AP Photo/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez)
Mourners carry the casket of Fethullah Gülen, an influential Turkish spiritual leader and Islamic scholar who died this week in self-exile in the United States, at a funeral prayer service, Thursday, Oct, 24, 2024, in Augusta, N.J. (AP Photo/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez)
Mourners carry the casket of Fethullah Gülen, an influential Turkish spiritual leader and Islamic scholar who died this week in self-exile in the United States, at a funeral prayer service, Thursday, Oct, 24, 2024, in Augusta, N.J. (AP Photo/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez)
Mourners carry the casket of Fethullah Gülen, an influential Turkish spiritual leader and Islamic scholar who died this week in self-exile in the United States, at a funeral prayer service, Thursday, Oct, 24, 2024, in Augusta, N.J. (AP Photo/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez)
A casket bearing the body of Fethullah Gülen, a Muslim cleric living in exile in the United States and faced unproven allegations that he orchestrated a failed 2016 coup in Turkey, sits in Skylands Stadium in Augusta, New Jersey, where thousands gathered for funeral prayers on Thursday Oct. 24. 2024. (AP Photo/Mike Rubinkam)
Mourners carry the casket of Fethullah Gülen, an influential Turkish spiritual leader and Islamic scholar who died this week in self-exile in the United States, at a funeral prayer service, Thursday, Oct, 24, 2024, in Augusta, N.J. (AP Photo/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez)
Mourners grieve Fethullah Gülen, a Turkish spiritual leader who died in US
FILE - Turkish Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen speaks to members of the media at his compound in Saylorsburg, Pa. in July 2016. (AP Photo/Chris Post, File)
Mourners grieve Fethullah Gülen, a Turkish spiritual leader who died in US
