UN report identifies emissions gap

National pledges made under the Paris Climate Change Agreement will only achieve a third of the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions required by 2030 to meet climate targets, a new report from the United Nations Environment Programme has found. In response, the director general of World Nuclear Association, Agneta Rising, said the importance of nuclear energy in meeting climate targets cannot be overstated.

The UN Environment Emissions Gap Report 2017 presents an assessment of current national mitigation efforts and the ambitions countries have presented in their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), which form the foundation of the Paris Agreement. The report was released on 31 October, ahead of the 23rd Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP23) meeting which is now under way in Bonn, Germany.

"UN Environment's report has shown that governments need to do much more to tackle climate change," Rising said. "I am pleased to see the report include nuclear energy as one of the mitigation options; it can contribute even more than the report identifies. It is important that governments include nuclear when they update their NDCs because nuclear energy is key to achieving our climate goals."

The Paris Agreement, adopted in 2015 at COP21, aims to limit global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius - and ideally limiting temperature increases to less than 1.5 degrees - compared to pre-industrial levels. The agreement entered into force in October 2016, transforming national action plans submitted by parties prior to the adoption of the agreement into binding NDCs.

The report focuses on the gap between the emissions reductions needed to achieve the Paris Agreement's targets at lowest cost, and the likely emissions reductions from the full implementation of NDCs. It has found that current NDCs cover only one third of the emissions reductions needed to be on a least-cost pathway for the 2 degrees goal. "The gap between the reductions needed and the national pledges made in Paris is alarmingly high," the report says.

"As things stand, even full implementation of current unconditional and conditional Nationally Determined Contributions makes a temperature increase of at least 3 degrees Celsius by 2100 very likely - meaning that governments need to deliver much stronger pledges when they are revised in 2020,", UN Environment said. "Should the United States follow through with its stated intention to leave the Paris Agreement in 2020, the picture could become even bleaker," it added.

The potential is there to close the emissions gap by 2030, the report notes, using "practical and cost-effective options" that are already available. "A systematic assessment of sectoral mitigation options presented in the report shows that the gap can be closed before 2030 … often by simply adopting or adapting best practice examples already deployed in the most innovative country contexts," it says. Solar and wind energy, efficient appliances, efficient passenger cars, afforestation and stopping deforestation could together potentially reduce emissions by up to 22 GtCO2 equivalent per year, the report notes.

In the current policy scenario, carbon emissions from the energy sector total 21.3 GtCO2 in 2030, of which 16.3 Gt from power generation, the report notes. "Main options for reducing emissions in the energy sector are wind and solar energy. In addition, hydro, nuclear, carbon capture and storage and bioenergy combined with carbon capture and storage can contribute," it says. Avoiding building new coal plants and phasing out existing ones is crucial to closing the emissions gap, the report notes.

"One year after the Paris Agreement entered into force, we still find ourselves in a situation where we are not doing nearly enough to save hundreds of millions of people from a miserable future," UN Environment head Erik Solheim said. "This is unacceptable. If we invest in the right technologies, ensuring the private sector is involved, we can still meet the promise we made to our children to protect their future. But we have to get on the case now," he said.

Researched and written
by World Nuclear News