Global Climate Action Stalls for Five Years: Report

Global efforts to combat climate change have made little progress over the past five years, as unfulfilled commitments and cancelled-out initiatives have prevented the world from slowing the pace of global warming, a report said Thursday.

The assessment was released during the UN climate conference in Antalya, Türkiye, where world leaders were scheduled to deliver further statements on the worsening climate crisis and plans to address it.

According to an independent report by Climate Action Tracker, collective climate action has effectively stalled for five consecutive years, with positive and negative measures offsetting one another.

During the first five years after the 2015 Paris Agreement, global climate initiatives reduced projected warming by a full degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit). However, progress has remained unchanged since then, the report said.

Climate change is primarily driven by greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas. Addressing the crisis requires substantial annual reductions in emissions. Countries outline their individual commitments to cut emissions through nationally determined contributions (NDCs), with the pace and methods varying from one country to another.

With collective efforts failing to significantly reduce global emissions, the world is heading towards an irreversible breach of the 1.5-degree Celsius (2.7-degree Fahrenheit) warming threshold above pre-industrial levels set under the Paris Agreement, the report warned.

Even if all countries fulfil their existing climate commitments, global temperatures are projected to rise by 2.6 degrees Celsius (4.7 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of this century.

That projection remains unchanged from 2024 and 2025, indicating that the latest round of commitments made last year has failed to significantly alter the expected warming trajectory, said Sarah Heck, a climate policy analyst at Climate Analytics and lead author of the report.

"This is still not enough," Heck said, stressing that countries need to strengthen their climate targets.

Leaders of island nations delivered a similar message to the international community on Wednesday, with more expected to reiterate their concerns on Thursday.

Although climate change is intensifying storms, heatwaves, droughts and floods worldwide, island nations face an additional existential threat as rising sea levels gradually threaten their territories.

"Every new oil well drilled, every piece of coal extracted is a threat to my country's future. The discovery of new fossil fuel resources is not something to celebrate, but something to fear," Marshall Islands President Hilda Heine said on Wednesday.

She was joined in raising concerns by leaders from Tuvalu, the Bahamas, Antigua and Barbuda, Niue and other island nations, who were expected to make similar appeals.

"No one has the right to pollute their neighbours," Heine said, urging the world to wake up to the climate crisis.

Recalling how coral reefs she had seen this year had changed from "bright and lush" to white because of bleaching, she warned that the global response to the inevitable breach of the 1.5-degree warming limit must be overwhelming or the world as people know it could be lost.

Meanwhile, Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley said wealthy countries must move beyond financial promises and provide more funding to poorer nations to help them recover from climate-related damage and adapt to rising temperatures.

"Pledges are not payments. But even the promised pledges are now 70% below previous levels," Mottley told fellow leaders on Wednesday.

She added that applause and expressions of support at international meetings had never rebuilt a single home in any country.