Meat consumption should be reduced to roughly two burgers a week across the Americas, Europe and Oceania, new research suggests. This is important to keep the climate crisis at bay. Also, public transport, walking and cycling should be expanded about six times faster than their current rate.
Reductions in the annual deforestation rate must accelerate 2.5 times faster, and coal should be phased out six times faster than recent global rates, the State of Climate Action 2022 report says.
Almost all systems, from how countries power their economies and build their cities to how they feed a growing population and manage their land, must be transformed, in order to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Transformations to address climate change are not fast enough
However, these transformations are not occurring nearly fast enough. As many as 40 indicators of systems change were assessed. However, none of these indicators are on track to reach their 2030 targets, the report states.
There is still a beacon of hope because change is heading in the right direction at a promising speed for six indicators. Though the speed is promising, it is insufficient. Also, change is occurring in the right direction but below the required speed for 21 indicators.
The report says that change in another five indicators is heading in the wrong direction entirely. Moreover, data are insufficient to evaluate the remaining eight indicators.
How can the 2030 targets be achieved?
An "enormous acceleration" in effort is necessary to get on track to achieve the 2030 targets, the report states. For instance, improvements in the carbon intensity of cement production should increase by a factor of more than 10. This means that the cement industry should rapidly work to cut its carbon emissions.
Also, it is important to switch to renewable energy and electric vehicles. Greenhouse gas emissions should be halved by 2030, and net-zero carbon dioxide emissions must be reached.
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Glimmers of hope in the journey towards reaching 2030 targets
Some of the achievements in this journey towards reaching the 2030 targets include the fact that wind and solar power continue to grow despite Covid-19. In 2021, renewable energy became cheaper than existing coal power for the first time. In the same year, electric vehicles accounted for nearly worldwide one in 10 passenger cars sold.
The authors note in the report that recent increases in total global climate finance, which facilitates transformations in different sectors, need to grow by over 10 times faster. This amounts to increasing the total global climate finance roughly by $460 billion every year this decade.
Financial institutions are underwriters of GHG emissions
The report states that financial institutions and companies are major underwriters of greenhouse gas emissions, fossil fuel production and carbon lock-in, and calls for them to stop this in order to achieve the Paris Agreement's target.
How can the Paris Agreement target be reached?
The window to limit warming to 1.5 degrees is rapidly closing. Even if the national 2030 climate control commitments are fully implemented, warming can be limited to roughly 2.4 degrees Celsius to 2.8 degrees Celsius because of the rapidly closing gap. Therefore, it is necessary to implement supportive measures that can advance action at the speed and scale required.
The report identifies these measures and states that the transformations ahead can bring tremendous benefits, but they will not be easy.
Greater, more inclusive efforts, more finance, and careful evaluations of impacts on people are necessary to ensure that the climate crisis is addressed.
The findings of the report will be presented to governments at the COP27 United Nations climate summit, which will begin in Egypt in November.