12-month plan launched to fight climate change

 

 

 

COUNTRIES representing over half of the global GDP, including India and the US, on Friday set out a 12-month action plan at the UN climate summit in Egypt to help make clean technologies cheaper and more accessible everywhere to fight climate change.

The UNFCCC said the plan includes 25 sector-specific “priority actions” under the Breakthrough Agenda to decarbonise power, transport and steel, scale up low-emission hydrogen production and accelerate the shift to sustainable agriculture by the 28th edition of the UN climate summit (COP28) which will be held in the UAE.

The Breakthrough Agenda, launched at COP26 by 45 countries accounting for 70 per cent of the global GDP, represents a global commitment to work together this decade to scale and speed up the development and deployment of clean technologies to help keep 1.5 degree Celsius goal in reach. The 45 countries including those in the G7, India and China. The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) said buildings and cement sectors are expected to be added to the plan next year. This year’s package of measures is designed to cut energy costs, rapidly reduce emissions and boost food security.

To keep global warming to no more than 1.5 degree Celsius, emissions need to be reduced by 45 percent by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050, according to climate scientists. The preferred warming limit set by the 2015 Paris Agreement is 1.5 degree Celsius -- a limit that countries hope will be sufficient to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

Earth’s global surface temperature has increased by around 1.1 degree Celsius as compared to the average in the pre-industrial (1850–1900) levels and this warming is considered the reason behind record droughts, wildfires and floods worldwide.