Developed countries have less than 48 hours to meet a deadline to reveal what levels of greenhouse gas reductions they would be willing to accept under a UN deal.
The submissions are seen as a critical step on the path towards a universal carbon cutting treaty, due to be signed off in Paris this December.
So far only the EU’s 28 member states, Switzerland, Mexico and Norway have released their figures, which account for around 13% of annual emissions.
The US will “definitely” deliver its goal on Monday or Tuesday, Jake Schmidt at the Washington DC-based National Defense Resources Council told RTCC.
It is likely to confirm its intention to slash emissions 26-28% on 2005 levels by 2025, as revealed in the US-China climate announcement last November.
Together with the existing pledges, that will cover 30% of global emissions, well short of the levels needed to ensure that the speed of global warming is arrested.
Preparation levels among other developed countries appear mixed. Russia’s climate envoy Oleg Shamanov confirmed to RTCC it would meet the deadline, but Canada and Japan have offered few indications they will be ready by March 31.
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The impact of climate change is posing a growing threat to peace and security. Germany is therefore putting climate and security on the Security Council’s agenda.
Russia’s economic development minister warned last week that the EU’s plans to deploy a carbon tax at the bloc’s borders will not be in line with World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules, just as Brussels doubled down on the idea of green tariffs.
Few places have suffered more from the COVID-19 pandemic than southern China, the region where the novel coronavirus was first detected in the city of Wuhan. But it turned out that the pandemic is not the only calamity to befall south China this year. The region has been inundated by heavy rainfall since late May, creating a risk of catastrophic flooding.
Natural resources-based conflicts are sometimes made complex by non-climate push and pull factors, like unemployment and political tension. These factors should be taken into account when developing and implementing a peacebuilding strategy, making sure all stakeholders are at the table – including those fueling the conflict. The online workshop ‘Integrating peacebuilding and climate change mitigation efforts in natural resource management’, organised by the European Peacebuilding Liaison Office (EPLO) and adelphi, looked into this complex issue.