Source: Common Dreams

Photo by Luca Camaiani/Shutterstock

A new global assessment out Thursday has found that across the vast number of key systems in human society—including energy, manufacturing, transportation, agricultural, and finance—not a single one is transforming fast enough to mitigate the “code red” warnings that scientists and experts have issued on the planetary climate emergency.

“It is clear that the climate crisis is still outpacing our response. This report is a call to action.”

The new report—titled “State of Climate Action 2021“—assessed whether the world is “doing enough” to achieve the climate goals of the 2015 Paris agreement by translating “the transformations required to keep global temperature rise to 1.5ºC into 40 indicators of progress” based on goals set for achieving meaningful changes by 2030 and 2050, such as phasing out coal, halting deforestation, and ramping up both public and private funding to halt the crisis.

Published under the Systems Change Lab, the report was a joint effort between the High-Level Climate Champions, Climate Action Tracker, ClimateWorks Foundation, the Bezos Earth Fund, and the World Resources Institute. The findings of the report, say its authors, are deeply troubling. According to a joint commentary, the researchers conclude that, “to date, none of the 40 indicators assessed are on track to reach 2030 targets.”

With emissions from sectors with among the largest emissions—namely agriculture, automobiles, and deforestation—”moving in the wrong direction” to meet international targets, Kelly Levin, chief of science at the Bezos Earth Fund and one of the report’s co-authors, told the Guardian that this reality must be rapidly altered.

“We need complete u-turns from these areas,” said Levin. “With climate change you can’t just head in the right direction, you need to do it at pace. Without that, we will reach disastrous tipping points.”

In the joint commentary, the report’s authors conclude that while the situation is dire, all is far from lost—especially if urgency among world leaders—both in the public and private sectors—is immediately ramped up:

Our ever-shrinking carbon budget does not accommodate delay. Should we fail to act now and greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise unabated, warming could climb to between 3.3 degrees C and 5.7 degrees C (5.9 degrees F and 10 degrees F) above preindustrial levels by 2100 — temperatures that would intensify the catastrophic impacts far beyond anything seen so far.

But if we can make a true step-change in ambition and action, as we’re beginning to see in some corners of the world, at COP26 and beyond, we can bring the enormous task of holding global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees C within reach and secure a safer, more prosperous and equitable future for all.

The “encouraging news,” according to the report, “is that we’re not starting from a standstill—the majority of indicators (25) are moving in the right direction, albeit too slowly. Of the remaining 15 indicators, recent progress has stagnated for three, change is heading in the wrong direction entirely for another three, and the remaining nine lack sufficient data to assess progress.”

Ani Dasgupta, president and CEO of the World Resources Institute, said, “While there are encouraging signs of progress across many sectors, it is clear that the climate crisis is still outpacing our response. This report is a call to action for policymakers, CEOs and others to take the bold, unprecedented action necessary to point us toward a safer and fairer future.”

Jon Queally is managing editor of Common Dreams.


ZNetwork is funded solely through the generosity of its readers.

Donate
Donate
Leave A Reply

Subscribe

All the latest from Z, directly to your inbox.

Institute for Social and Cultural Communications, Inc. is a 501(c)3 non-profit.

Our EIN# is #22-2959506. Your donation is tax-deductible to the extent allowable by law.

We do not accept funding from advertising or corporate sponsors.  We rely on donors like you to do our work.

ZNetwork: Left News, Analysis, Vision & Strategy

Subscribe

All the latest from Z, directly to your inbox.

THE WIND CRIES FREEDOM

The Wind Cries Freedom, the new book from Z co-founder Michael Albert, is a sweeping oral history of a future American revolution.

Through thirty interconnected chapters, it draws out the strategies, failures, turning points, and hard-won wisdom of a movement that called itself the Revolutionary Participatory Society. These are not the polished memoirs of politicians: they are the unfiltered accounts of people who organized in neighborhoods, hospitals, universities, stadiums, courthouses, and places of worship, and kept a shared vision alive through cynicism and exhaustion.

The result is speculative political fiction that reads like history: messy, human, and quietly hopeful in the way that only real experience and long thought can produce.

Get your copy and peruse more features on the book’s website below.

“Read it, argue with it, but don’t look away. The future it recalls is one we must still fight to deserve.”

Yanis Varoufakis

“The most unusual and intriguing combination of prophecy, manifesto, and movement building manual that I have ever encountered.”

Bill Fletcher Junior

“This work fills a huge gap in our social movement literature.”

Cynthia Peters

You've just read your article on Z this month.

DOES Z'S SURVIVAL MATTER?

You keep coming back for a reason: serious political analysis, movement reporting, and debate beyond the priorities of corporate media. Today, Z is in a precarious financial position. If Z is part of how you understand the world, help keep it going. The readers who give monthly are the reason this work survives between fundraisers.

Z is in a precarious financial position. If it’s part of how you understand the world, help keep it going.

Number of donors708
Our goal1,000

Sustainers at $9/month or more receive the digital Z Magazine.

Already a sustainer? Click here and we won’t ask again. Thank you!

Your reading count is stored only in your browser and is never sent to us.

Sound is muted by default.  Tap 🔊 for the full experience

CRITICAL ACTION

Critical Action is a longtime friend of Z and a music and storytelling project grounded in liberation, solidarity, and resistance to authoritarian power. Through music, narrative, and multimedia, the project engages the same political realities and movement traditions that guide and motivate Z’s work.

If this project resonates with you, you can learn more about it and find ways to support the work using the link below.

Z is in the most precarious financial position in its history.

Z is a place to think beyond the limits of the present.

For decades, Z has brought together political analysis, movement reporting, debate, and visions of a different future from writers and activists around the world. That work is more than journalism. It is movement infrastructure: movements need places to develop ideas, test arguments, learn from experience, and imagine what comes next.

In the first two days of this fundraiser, 19 donors and 8 new monthly sustainers stepped up. Help us reach 1,000 donors who keep Z independent, for everyone.

For decades, Z has published the analysis, debate, and visions movements need, free of paywalls, ads, and billionaire owners. If that work should continue, Z needs your support now.

Number of donors708
Our goal1,000

Sustainers at $9/month or more receive the digital Z Magazine.

Subscribe

Join the Z Community – receive event invites, announcements, a Weekly Digest, and opportunities to engage.

Exit mobile version