Climate Action Tracker — a group of scientists and other experts who analyze nations' climate plans for domestic emissions — found that four of the six NDC targets they looked at so far got an “almost sufficient" for their target of holding warming to 2 degrees Celsius.
The world is now at 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.3 degrees Fahrenheit) since the late 1800s and on pace to warm another 1.8 degrees Celsius (3.2 degrees Fahrenheit), according to the U.N. Scientists say the warming atmosphere is driving ever more extreme weather events, including flooding, droughts, hurricanes, heat waves and wildfires that are killing people and causing billions of dollars in damage every year.
Nearly 200 nations faced a Monday deadline to file what the United Nations' climate chief calls “among the most important policy documents governments will produce this century” — their plans on how they will cut emissions of heat-trapping gases.
Every five years, nations are supposed to come up with new and stronger five-year plans that outline their voluntary plans to limit or reduce emissions of greenhouse gases from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas.
So far only a dozen of the 195 nations that signed the 2015 Paris climate agreement have filed their national plans for cutting emissions by 2035.
