World on track for 2.6C temperature rise as nations fail to meet climate targets

By Asiye Latife Yilmaz

ISTANBUL (AA) - The world remains on course for a disastrous 2.6 degrees Celsius temperature rise as nations fall short of making adequate climate commitments, according to a new report on Thursday.

Despite their pledges, governments’ new emission-cutting plans submitted ahead of the COP30 climate summit in Brazil have failed to significantly curb dangerous global warming for the fourth straight year.

The report, published by the Climate Action Tracker, said that the 2035 Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) 2035 so far submitted “don’t change the dial in terms of keeping warming to 1.5˚C.”

This level of warming would surpass the limits set by the 2015 Paris climate agreement, risking a catastrophic era marked by extreme weather events and severe global hardships.

According to a new data from the Global Carbon Project on Thursday, global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from fossil fuels and cement are projected to increase by about 1.1% in 2025, reaching a record 38.1 billion tons.

A decline in land-use emissions means that global CO2 emissions in 2025 are expected to stay roughly the same as in 2024.

The report found that the land carbon sink, the part of human-caused CO2 emissions absorbed by plants and soils, has recovered to its pre-El Nino levels after two unusually weak years.

A research published alongside the report said climate change has weakened land and ocean carbon sinks by about 15% over the past decade, contributing roughly 8% to the rise in atmospheric CO2 since 1960.