World must cut emissions by 18% in four years ‘to find our way back’, UN says
Action needed to avoid disastrous overshoot of climate targets, according to organisation’s environment body
The world needs to cut carbon emissions by nearly a fifth in the next four years, and by close to half within a decade, to avoid overshooting climate targets by a disastrous margin.
Although the “window has closed” on holding temperature rises to 1.5C, in line with scientific advice, limiting the “overshoot” of that target is still possible, according to the UN Environment Programme (Unep).
But countries are failing to translate their long-term targets on reducing emissions into short-term actions, a report on the “emissions gap” between climate goals and policies has found.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/oct/21/world-cut-emissions-un-climate-crisisOpen linkView original on lemmy.world
90 replies
The only way we can cut emission this fast is with a guillotine.
Theres less than zero chance China or the US would do this.
Nobody takes the UN seriously anymore anyway. Russia, Israel and the US have ruined its credibility
Spoiler alert, we won’t…
Not only that, we're actively working against it.
Best we can hope for is hyperscale data centres to create big brother and skynet.
Agi will fix this /s
Indeed, terminate all humans
AI: "mo humans no problems"
Skynets solution to global warming, kill all humans...
Easiest path to victory for Skynet would be to just crank up global warming
Funny that you mention it...
AI bust and oil wars started by idiots making renewable preferable will go a long way.
At this point they just say it to show how hopeless our situation is. In 10 years they will say "World must invent time machine, go back in time and prevent AI bubble from happening to keep temperature rise below 2C".
Our best hope is war making oil too complicated.
China is still expanding with coal and pinky promising they will peak in 2030 before going down
Expensive oil will help but won't do enough
China is doing much better than the rest of the world in converting to renewables imo, can't happen overnight.
Here's a better chart with data until 2024. China really does need to start reducing their emissions soon or they're gonna fuck us all.
yeah I think it always needs to be pointed out that the rise in both china and india and the leveling off and falling in the us and europe are more a factor of offshoring manufacturing than anything else.
Holy shit I didn't realize it was that bad
They've flattened over the last couple of years missing from that chart. Despite not stopping development and making the world's shit.
Bloody hell, I thought chinas investment in green energy was the one good news story about climate change. This is surprising.
It is. Y’all are also neglecting that during this period China modernized faster than anyone ever before. They brought hundreds of millions out of poverty and rapidly grew into a modern industrial power.
China’s investment in green energy and transportation is a good news story about climate change and China’s investment in its people is a good news story about human well being (disregarding oppression an genocide of course). Up until now they grew faster than they greened, but those lines are crossing
https://lemmy.ca/comment/25957549
Per capita, China's emissions are still far lower than the US.
"Can't happen overnight" ...but it's already too late and they are still rising
And "converting to renewables better" doesn't mean much when their main priority is expanding production
https://i0.wp.com/epthinktank.eu/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/screen-shot-2015-11-27-at-12-12-17.png?ssl=1
I'm no Sino cheerleader, but China has a plan and is executing. Love 'em or hate 'em, the 21st century is China's century.
Yeah they've got a plan to keep expanding emmissions
I don't really see how that's a thing to cheer for under this cry for help in the OP
China's doing what every industrial nation did in the 20th century, pollute their way to the top, but at least they're doing it with a plan to roll back. Here in America we're purposefully making emissions worse with no future plans.
I also find it amusing when Westerners bitch about China doing exactly what they did to get on top economically.
"Hey! You can't do the bad shit we did!"
"I learned it from you dad!" :)
China's coal use per capita is monstrous, but oil use per capita is falling. Given that their green energy exports are not carbon-free manufacturing, well, TANSTAAFL.
"dad"?
I don't think you understand how serious this issue is
Ever notice how when someone doesn't have a solid rebuttal, they pick one tiny thing about your comment to highlight?
My point stands: China's doing the same shit today that the West did to come out on top of the economic heap. And now we're all offended? And again, they're treating emissions as a temporary evil whereas America is actively rolling back rules and regulations.
Duh it's not anthropogenic, obviously nothing will work. The 'urgency' will get worse and worse and all they'll come up with is carbon tax, carbon allowance, restrictions for everyone except epstein class. Instead of prepping. Its so fucking obvious, I'm dumb as fuck and I can see it. Embarrassing.
Yes.
Yes.
It's blatantly obvious climate change is anthropogenic there's tons of evidence and overwhelming consensus amongst the scientific community globally.
Overwhelming consensus in ignoring space weather and the fact that climate has done nothing else other than change since eons.
tldr;
We're
Nonsense. We just cut off 20% of the global supply of Petroleum with the Iran War.
That, plus Ukraine and Russia obliterating their fossil fuel production capacity is going a long way towards tightening emissions.
The only problem is how unprepared we are for it and how it's not the 20% most pointless crap that will be left to rot. Many people would like to lose weight, but famine is a bad way to go about it.
I mean I'm not out to darken everyone's day. But this isn't happening.
well of course. I mean if they had told us sooner maybe but how was anyone to know? /s
At the height of global lockdowns in early April 2020, daily global fossil CO₂ emissions fell by 17% to 19% compared to 2019 levels.
Main Contributors to the Drop:
Sooo... Wfh and we're good?
Win win
eh, we're looking at a grim future either way at this point.
Only way I can picture the world cutting by that amount, is if there's a massive collapse of western civilization / the wealthy get purged, and technology goes backwards. We won't do that willingly, so the world will instead continue its trajectory, with the worst of climate change impact hitting poor people -- and rich people / wealthy people using their assets to eek out a mediocre lifestyle in the future. I doubt we'd totally die off, barring something truly cataclysmic.
I doubt Rosa Luxemburg was referring to climate collapse when she talked about the choice between socialism or barbarism, but here we are.
Maybe. I'm not so sure socialism would really change anything though, on the aggregate in terms of climate collapses.
Socialism isn't by default Eco-friendly / Eco-conscientious. Capitalism tends to have all the benefits from climate destroying stuff go to a capitalist class -- socialism could easily take the form of still pushing climate destroying stuff, but distributing the benefits to the masses. Depending on the scale of the change (which is likely to be massive), diversifying the benefits could result in no human surviving, rather than just a subset of the wealthy.
For a random example to explain the thought, really 'loose' example admittedly. Under socialism, theoretically you'd have a fairer distribution of wealth so that housing would be more equitable -- most people would get a simple starter-type home to live in. Rich person doomsday bunker type homes would be almost unheard of, as no individual would amass so much wealth that they could build em. In the socialist approach, each individual home has a smaller climate footprint, but the volume of homes built could have a similar net impact on the environment in the aggregate. So if it gets so bad that you need a bunker, humanity all dies together, equitably?
Fat chance of that. The Trump Regime doesn't give a shit about the future of the nation, let alone the world. So long as they have bunkers, our 'leaders' feel fine with dire outcomes.
Enough with these "by X years" projections, it keeps giving governments that there's still time to kick the can. Just publish "this is how much we are over the emissions budget TODAY" and make it clear that as long as it's above 0 that means we are truly, really fucking ourselves and future generations.
While true, it won't bother those in power and those with money.....
Cutting down on emissions is expensive and nobody with the power to change anything wants to be the one who is responsible for everything getting expensive
Yeah, all the decisions shouldn't be made by hyper-geriatrics who don't have to live through the ramifications.
I envision a rocket flying directly into the sun and the two pilots discussing when they should start turning.
If only the pandemic had taken out 2 or 3 billion people...
Looks like plants should probably be back on the menu boys
Best I can do is a 25% increase
Line. Must. Go. Up! 💹
You mean Taxes, right ?
Our best chance to meet that target is for earth to be hit by a major asteroid.
Boy, do I have bad news about how much carbon is going to be burned when a major asteroid hits.
We WILL get a mini-ice age from the blocking out of the sun though!
I’m at the point where I’m starting to think the best thing would be to let the world burn and a quick end to humanity.
Then kill yourself.
Otherwise you’re just spewing inane babble.
Depends how big the asteroid is .
an alien invasion would be better, but a meteorite impact is more realistic.
Meanwhile the most sold car in north America is a huge pickup truck.
An F150 can get as much as 25mpg while my wife's Volvo S60 gets 30mpg.
And a 2012 Camry hybrid does 40mpg, what's you point?
Shit, a 1990 CRX would do that.
That new trucks aren't necessarily gas guzzlers, they're clearly worse, but only the monster powertrains with monster price tags are stupid awful. No one bags on me for my 2004 F150 because it's neither huge nor a pavement princess, but it gets half the mileage of a new one.
I left out hybrids so as to compare apples to apples. If we want to go there, there are hybrid versions of my wife's car.
I'm comparing cars with cars. The vast majority of pickup owners don't need a truck. The average owners uses the bed of the truck twice a year. Just look at how shinny and clean all the pickup on the roads are.
The funniest part is the truck gets bigger, while the bed is always 6 ft.
I work with a few people who use F-250 (and comparable Chevy/dodge) just as a commute vehicle. It really pisses me off.
How do you know they're not hauling shit you don't know about? OTOH, very damn few people need an F250. I loaded F150 trucks and trailers with monster loads at Lowe's.
Here in Missouri that's just the norm.
How do you know that? I used to bitch about "pavement princesses" with the rest of y'all, until I worked at Lowe's and saw those same trucks hauling monster trailers of lumber and rock. MAGA neighbor I hate has one. You would say he doesn't need it if you saw him on the highway. But I see all the shit he hauls.
As to my POS F150, I'll never do without a truck again. We take my wife's car everywhere and my truck mainly sits until needed.
You don't need a truck if it sit still most of the time. At best you need a friend with a truck and maybe a station wagon. I know it because it's all around me.
The only reason people think they need a truck is because the car industry decided thats what they want to sell to people. The plain reason for that is that it gives them the highest profit margin . In the early 2000 they wanted you to have an SUV for the same reason. There's good video on the subject that you can easily find, where they explain how selling cars that falls in the "light truck" category (like the truck you own) is more profitable since around 15 years now.
The F150 is our only other vehicle. Shall I sit at home when my wife is in the office 3-days a week? I do anyway, but sometimes have to leave. We also pick crap off the side of the road to sell at the flea market or FB Marketplace. And it was very nice to go to my camp in the boonies and haul home emergency gear before Hurricane Isaias. Four of my neighbors were damned happy I could run a genny out the back and keep their fridges on and phones charges for 5-days.
Which kinda speaks to my point of judging truck drivers without knowing their story. Sure, there's lots of assholes out there that don't truly need a truck, but when I need it, I need it. In the last year we've replaced the dishwasher, clothes washer and fridge from FB. How was I to get those home? (Bad luck that year, but those are the nicest we've ever had! 😁)
As to the profit margins, oh boy do I know. I got schooled on that during my brief stint as a Chevy salesman in '93. We could charge shitloads more for a full-sized truck vs a smaller one. Same engineering, labor and safety costs, all that and more, for just a little more steel.
Assuming I get a decent job again, and assuming they work out, I'm holding out for a Slate truck. I'd kill for a small truck, all electric, no bullshit, not even a radio.
Or you can get 50 mpg out of a 20 year old diesel 5 series wagon with way more cargo space than that S60, but y'all Americans decided NOx is far more important than CO2 or fuel economy, so there's a limited selection of diesel engines in cars available.
LOL, now is not the time to bring up diesel engines in America.
are you comparing highway to highway and city to city. this does not seem right.
Good question! I was going for the average between the two. Anyway, I should never have brought up mpg, too complex a topic for a simple post.
Here's a weird example: My old F150 costs little more than my wife's old Outback when picking up the kids 350 miles away, but on city mileage it's abysmal. I have no idea why this is. $30 more on a 700-mile roundtrip doesn't make sense.
yeah I would think the more boxy and hight profile vehicle would do worse with wind resistance. maybe its the mass. more stop and go in the city so more having to get it going and stopping it and the mass then might be multiplicative but it could be when moving at a steady speed it ends up being minimal change. heck I wonder if the better ground clearance is more conducive to the air moving easier past it.
Buh the C02 Coalition (this is a real lobbying group BTW) told me everything was fine.
Well China opened like 50 coal power plants in 2025 alone, they have roughly 2,000 in operation. Second is India with like 230, and the US is third with about 213.
So let's guess where a good place to start is. Might fix the AQI so it isn't pegged at 999, for reference New York City is typically 12-22.
Not ordering cheap Chinese crap off Amazaliexprtemu?
Per person we're still the biggest polluter. I don't think it's even that close. Feel free to check this.
Reserve plants are counted by how much they're used which hasn't been that high so far, not the total amount they could burn if used 100%. They are going all in on solar with coal backup.
Yeah, that’ll do it 🙄