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Emissions from industry, farms and forests endanger Paris climate goals

(Reuters, 19 Nov 2020) Far more effort will be needed to clean up economic sectors like cement and agriculture if the world is to keep climate change in check, researchers say.

Many parts of the global economy, especially agriculture and the cement and steel industries, are heading in the wrong direction or cleaning up their act far too slowly to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, researchers warned on Thursday.

At this rate, goals set in the 2015 Paris Agreement - aimed at heading off the worst impacts of wild weather and rising seas by curbing temperature rise - will not be met, said a report by the World Resources Institute (WRI) and ClimateWorks Foundation.

Planet-heating emissions need to drop by half by 2030 and fall to net-zero by 2050 to meet the Paris pact target of keeping warming "well below" 2C and ideally to 1.5C, it noted.

"This report makes clear that we need to dramatically step up action across all economic sectors globally, if we want a stable climate future," said Surabi Menon, vice president of global intelligence at the U.S.-based ClimateWorks Foundation.

The report examined global and country-level progress on climate action and commitments across six sectors: power, buildings, industry, transport, forests and agriculture.

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Reuters, 19 Nov 2020: Emissions from industry, farms and forests endanger Paris climate goals