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Sustainability

8 years after the Paris Agreement, see how climate change has shaped the planet

There is good news and bad. Reviewing progress on climate action since the signing of the Paris Agreement will be a key agenda at COP28.

8 years after the Paris Agreement, see how climate change has shaped the planet

Rise in average sea levels around the world. (Animated graphics: CNA/Clara Ho)

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BANGKOK: It is just a short document — 16 paragraphs and 29 articles. But over the past eight years, the Paris Agreement has set the framework for keeping the rise in mean temperature to well below 2 degrees Celsius.

At United Nations-led climate change talks at the 28th Conference of the Parties (COP28), which start today, data will be presented for the first time to show the collective progress made since 2015.

The preliminary findings ahead of COP28 show progress to reduce carbon emissions has been painfully slow.

But there are a few silver linings, such as the continued reduction in costs of renewables, the escalation in rate of renewable energy adoption, and the development and rollout of electric vehicles.

Here are four measurements of how climate change — and the world’s response — has transformed the planet. See how closely you can track the changes.

GLOBAL TEMPERATURES

This year was officially a scorcher the hottest on record. The average temperature was about 1.7 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, defying scientists’ expectations.

This month, the planet also briefly passed a much dreaded mark -  a 2 degrees Celsius rise for the first time. Albeit temporary, it was a sign of the extremes already being faced.

It is uncharted territory and raises the prospects of potentially deadly wildfires, heatwaves and prolonged droughts.

SEA LEVELS

Global sea level rise has been accelerating due to global warming, based on observations by the United States’ National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which has caused glaciers and sheet ice to melt at unprecedented rates.

The amounts may seem small, but new research by the International Cryosphere Climate Initiative suggests a dangerous tipping point may be closer than realised.

Even if temperature rise is restricted to 2 degrees Celsius an objective currently not being met irreversible damage will be done to frozen parts of the planet, causing disastrous impacts worldwide.

RENEWABLE ENERGY

Perhaps surprisingly, since 2015 the proportion of total power coming from clean sources including solar, wind, tidal and biofuels has not shifted much, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

More than 30 percent of total energy will need to come from renewable sources by 2030, in order for the global energy sector to be on course to achieve net zero CO2 emissions by 2050.

China and the United States have both this month expressed support for tripling global renewable energy capacity by the end of the decade.

ELECTRIC VEHICLES

All around the world, governments have been promoting electric vehicles to replace vehicles with internal combustion engines. The technology can reduce reliance on fossil fuels like oil and reduce emissions.

Adoption rates have risen massively since 2015, from seven out of 1,000 new cars sold being electric, to 14 per cent in 2022, based on IEA data. A steep increase is projected by the end of the decade as the technology becomes cheaper and more reliable.

There are still questions about the reliance on EVs to fight global warming, however. The electricity generated to power them is critical and more industry work needs to be done on raw material supply chains and battery recycling.

More climate action is needed now on all fronts after the breakthrough in Paris in 2015, said Ms Melissa Low, a research fellow at the National University of Singapore's Centre for Nature-based Climate Solutions, who was an observer at COP21.

“These next years are important because we have very little time to meet the temperature limit, and the complex interactions among the earth, ocean, cryosphere, atmosphere and biosphere can affect the time it will take us to get to that emissions and temperature limit,” she said.

Although decarbonisation efforts have been slow, the objectives of the Paris Agreement still hold strong today, despite initially being criticised for being insufficiently binding.

“Things would have been worse if we didn't have the Paris Agreement. Even though I think it was generally understood at the time that it wasn't perfect, it was the best we could do and much better than nothing,” said Professor Mark Howden, director of the Institute for Climate, Energy & Disaster Solutions at the Australian National University.

Source: CNA/jb
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