6 May 2021.

Introduction:

The impacts of the recent US Climate Summit has been discussed in a report by Climate Action Tracker recently. The report states that even after implementing the ambitious climate goals of the summit, global temperature will increase by 2.4°C by 2100 as compared to that of pre-industrial levels.

Highlights of the report:

• The report tracked the policies of thirty-six countries and also their climate pledges. These thirty-six countries along with the European Union together accounted for 80% of the world carbon emissions.
• The Climate Action Tracker prior to the summit had predicted that the global temperatures are to increase by 2.6°C.
• According to the report, most of the countries are lagging behind their stated climate targets.
• At this pace, the global temperature will increase by 2.9°C by 2100.
• Thus, the countries should increase their voluntary emission targets under the Paris Agreement before Glasgow summit.
• The Glasgow Summit, COP26 is to be held in November 2021.

Significance of the issue:

• According to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the world will face severe impacts if the global temperature increases beyond 1.5°C.
• If this happens, all Himalayan glaciers will vanish, global water stress will double, all coral reefs will die, widespread habitat destruction, extreme summer heatwaves.
• Above all more than ten million people will be affected by global sea level rise.

About Climate Action Tracker

• It is an independent scientific analysis that tracks climate actions of governments.
•  It then measures it against the Paris Agreement.
• It is a collaboration of two organisations, New Climate Institute and Climate Analytics.