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CLIMATEWIRE |<\/strong>\u00a0This story is part of POLITICO’s\u00a0<\/em>COP28 Special Report<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n The COP28 climate summit comes at a critical moment for the planet.<\/p>\n A summer that toppled heat records left a trail of disasters around the globe. The world may be just six years away from breaching the Paris Agreement\u2019s temperature target of 1.5 degrees Celsius, setting the stage for much worse calamities to come. And governments are cutting their greenhouse gas pollution far too slowly to head off the problem \u2014 and haven\u2019t coughed up the billions of dollars they promised to help poorer countries cope with the damage.<\/p>\n This year\u2019s summit, which starts on Nov. 30 in Dubai, will conclude the first assessment of what countries have achieved since signing the Paris accord in 2015.<\/p>\n The forgone conclusion: They\u2019ve made some progress. But not enough. The real question is what they do in response.<\/p>\n To help understand the stakes, here\u2019s a snapshot of the state of the planet \u2014 and global climate efforts \u2014 in 10 numbers.<\/p>\n Human-caused greenhouse gas emissions have been driving global temperatures skyward since the 19th century, when the industrial revolution and the mass burning of fossil fuels began to affect the Earth\u2019s climate. The world has already warmed by about 1.3 degrees Celsius, or 2.3 degrees Fahrenheit, and most of that warming has occurred since the 1970s. In the last 50 years, research suggests, global temperatures have risen at their\u00a0fastest rate in at least 2,000 years<\/a>.<\/p>\n This past October concluded the Earth\u2019s\u00a0hottest 12-month span on record<\/a>, a recent analysis found. And 2023 is virtually certain to be the hottest calendar year ever observed. It\u2019s continuing a string of recent record-breakers \u2014 the world\u2019s five hottest years on record have all occurred since 2015.<\/p>\n Allowing warming to pass 2 degrees Celsius would tip the world into catastrophic changes, scientists have warned, including life-threatening heat extremes, worsening storms and wildfires, crop failures, accelerating sea-level rise and existential threats to some coastal communities and small island nations. Eight years ago in Paris, nearly every nation on Earth agreed to strive to keep temperatures well below that threshold, and under a more ambitious 1.5-degree threshold if at all possible.<\/p>\n But with just fractions of a degree to go, that target is swiftly approaching \u2014 and many experts say it\u2019s\u00a0already all but out of reach<\/a>.<\/p>\n Climate-related disasters are worsening as temperatures rise. Heat waves are intensifying, tropical cyclones are strengthening, floods and droughts are growing more severe and wildfires are blazing bigger.\u00a0Record-setting events struck all over the planet this year<\/a>, a harbinger of new extremes to come. Scientists say such events will only accelerate as the world warms.<\/p>\n Nearly 12,000 weather, climate and water-related disasters struck worldwide<\/a>\u00a0over the last five decades, the World Meteorological Organization reports. They\u2019ve caused trillions of dollars in damage, and they\u2019ve killed more than 2 million people.<\/p>\n Ninety percent of these deaths have occurred in developing countries. Compared with wealthier nations, these countries have historically contributed little to the greenhouse gas emissions driving global warming \u2014 yet they disproportionately suffer the impacts of climate change.<\/p>\n Global sea levels are rapidly rising as the ice sheets melt and the oceans warm and expand. Scientists estimate that they\u2019re\u00a0now rising by about 4.4 millimeters<\/a>, or about 0.17 inches, each year \u2014 and that rate is accelerating, increasing by about 1 millimeter every decade.<\/p>\n Those sound like small numbers. They\u2019re not.<\/p>\n The world\u2019s ice sheets and glaciers are losing a whopping\u00a01.2 trillion tons of ice each year<\/a>. Those losses are also speeding up, accelerating by at least 57 percent since the 1990s. Future sea-level rise mainly depends on future ice melt, which depends on future greenhouse gas emissions. With extreme warming,\u00a0global sea levels will likely rise as much as 3 feet<\/a>\u00a0by the end of this century, enough to swamp many coastal communities, threaten freshwater supplies and submerge some small island nations.<\/p>\n Some places are more vulnerable than others.<\/p>\n \u201cLow-lying islands in the Pacific are on the frontlines of the fight against sea-level rise,\u201d said NASA sea-level expert Benjamin Hamlington. \u201cIn the U.S., the Southeast and Gulf Coasts are experiencing some of the highest rates of sea-level rise in the world and have very high future projections of sea level.\u201d<\/p>\n But in the long run, he added, \u201calmost every coastline around the world is going to experience sea-level rise and will feel impacts.\u201d<\/p>\n The world is swiftly running out of time to meet its most ambitious international climate target: keeping global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius. Humans can emit only another 250 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide and maintain at least even odds of meeting that goal, scientists say.<\/p>\n That pollution threshold could arrive in as little as six years.<\/p>\n That\u2019s the bottom line from at least two recent studies,\u00a0one published in June<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0one in October<\/a>. Humans are pouring about 40 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year, with each ton eating into the margin of error.<\/p>\n The size of that carbon buffer is smaller than previous estimates have suggested, indicating that time is running out even faster than expected.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile our research shows it is still physically possible for the world to remain below 1.5C, it’s difficult to see how that will stay the case for long,\u201d said Robin Lamboll, a scientist at Imperial College London and lead author of the most recent study. \u201cUnfortunately, net-zero dates for this target are rapidly approaching, without any sign that we are meeting them.\u201d<\/p>\n The world would have to undergo a stark transformation during this decade to have any hope of meeting the Paris Agreement\u2019s ambitious 1.5-degree cap.<\/p>\n In a nutshell, global greenhouse gas emissions have to fall 43 percent by 2030, and 60 percent by 2035, before reaching net-zero by mid-century, according to a\u00a0U.N. report published in September<\/a>\u00a0on the progress the world has made since signing the Paris Agreement. That would give the world a 50 percent chance of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees.<\/p>\n But based on the climate pledges that countries have made to date, greenhouse gas emissions are likely to fall by just 2 percent this decade, according to a U.N. assessment\u00a0published this month<\/a>.<\/p>\n Governments are \u201ctaking baby steps to avert the climate crisis,\u201d U.N. climate chief Simon Stiell\u00a0said in a statement this month<\/a>. \u201cThis means COP28 must be a clear turning point.\u201d<\/p>\n In many ways, U.N. climate summits are all about finance. Cutting industries\u2019 carbon pollution, protecting communities from extreme weather, rebuilding after climate disasters \u2014 it all costs money. And developing countries, in particular, don\u2019t have enough of it.<\/p>\n As financing needs grow, pressure is mounting on richer nations such as the U.S. that have produced the bulk of planet-warming emissions to help developing countries cut their own pollution and adapt to a warmer world. They also face growing calls to pay for the destruction wrought by climate change, known as loss and damage in U.N.-speak.<\/p>\n But the flow of money from rich to poor countries has slowed. In October, a pledging conference to replenish the U.N.\u2019s Green Climate Fund\u00a0raised only $9.3 billion<\/a>, even less than the $10 billion that countries had promised last time. An overdue promise by developed countries to deliver $100 billion a year by 2020 to help developing countries reduce emissions and adapt to rising temperatures was \u201clikely\u201d met last year, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development\u00a0said this month<\/a>, while warning that adaptation finance had fallen by 14 percent in 2021.<\/p>\n As a result, the gap between what developing countries need and how much money is flowing in their direction is growing. The OECD report said developing countries will need around $1 trillion a year for climate investments by 2025, \u201crising to roughly $2.4 trillion each year between 2026 and 2030.\u201d<\/p>\n In stark contrast to the trickle of climate finance, fossil fuel subsidies have surged in recent years. In 2022, total spending on subsidies for oil, natural gas and coal reached a record $7 trillion, the International Monetary Fund\u00a0said in August<\/a>. That\u2019s $2 trillion more than in 2020.<\/p>\n Explicit subsidies \u2014 direct government support to reduce energy prices \u2014 more than doubled since 2020, to $1.3 trillion. But the majority of subsidies are implicit, representing the fact that governments don\u2019t require fossil fuel companies to pay for the health and environmental damage that their products inflict on society.<\/p>\n At the same time, countries continue pumping public and private money into fossil fuel production. This month, a U.N. report found that\u00a0governments plan to produce<\/a>\u00a0more than twice the amount of fossil fuels in 2030 than would be consistent with the 1.5-degree target.<\/p>\n At the COP26 climate summit two years ago in Glasgow, Scotland, nations committed to halting global deforestation by 2030. A total of 145 countries have signed the Glasgow Forest Declaration, representing more than 90 percent of global forest cover. Yet global action is still falling short of that target. The annual\u00a0Forest Declaration Assessment<\/a>, produced by a collection of research and civil society organizations, estimated that the world lost 66,000 square kilometers of forest last year, or about 25,000 square miles \u2014 a swath of territory slightly larger than West Virginia or Lithuania. Most of that loss came from tropical forests.<\/p>\n Halting deforestation is a critical component of global climate action. The U.N.\u2019s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns that collective contributions from agriculture, forestry and land use compose as much as 21 percent of global human-caused carbon emissions. Deforestation releases large volumes of carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere, and recent research suggests that carbon losses from tropical forests\u00a0may have doubled since the early 2000s<\/a>.<\/p>\n Given the world\u2019s slow pace in reducing greenhouse gas pollution,\u00a0scientists say<\/a>\u00a0a second approach is essential for slowing the Earth\u2019s warming \u2014 removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.<\/p>\n The technology for doing this is largely untested at scale, and won\u2019t be cheap.<\/p>\n A\u00a0landmark report<\/a>\u00a0on carbon dioxide removals led by the University of Oxford earlier this year found that keeping warming to 2 degrees Celsius or less would require countries to collectively remove an additional 0.96 billion tons of CO2-equivalent a year by 2030.<\/p>\n About 2 billion tons are now removed every year, but that is largely achieved through the natural absorption capacity of forests.<\/p>\n Removing even more carbon will require countries to massively scale up carbon removal technologies, given the limited capacity of forests to absorb more carbon dioxide.<\/p>\n Carbon removal technologies are in the spotlight at COP28, though some countries and companies want to use them to meet net-zero while continuing to burn fossil fuels. Scientists have been clear that carbon removal cannot be a substitute for steep emissions cuts.<\/p>\n The shift from fossil fuels to renewables is underway, but the transition is still far too slow to meet the Paris Agreement targets.<\/p>\n To keep 1.5 degrees within reach, the International Renewable Energy Agency estimates that the world needs to add 1,000 gigawatts in renewable energy capacity every year through 2030. By comparison, the United States\u2019 entire utility-scale electricity-generation capacity was\u00a0about 1,160 gigawatts last year<\/a>, according to the Department of Energy.<\/p>\n Last year, countries added about 300 gigawatts, according to the agency\u2019s latest\u00a0World Energy Transitions Outlook<\/a>\u00a0published in June.<\/p>\n That shortfall has prompted the EU and the climate summit\u2019s host nation, the United Arab Emirates, to campaign for nations to sign up to a target to triple the world\u2019s renewable capacity by 2030 at COP28, a goal\u00a0also supported<\/a>\u00a0by the U.S. and China.<\/p>\n \u201cThe transition to clean energy is happening worldwide and it\u2019s unstoppable,\u201d International Energy Agency boss Fatih Birol said last month. \u201cIt\u2019s not a question of \u2018if\u2019, it\u2019s just a matter of \u2018how soon\u2019 \u2014 and the sooner the better for all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n This story is part of POLITICO’s\u00a0<\/em>COP28 Special Report<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n1.3 degrees Celsius<\/h2>\n
Global warming since the preindustrial era<\/h3>\n
$4.3 trillion<\/h2>\n
Global economic losses from climate disasters since 1970<\/h3>\n
4.4 millimeters<\/h2>\n
Annual rate of sea-level rise<\/h3>\n
Less than six years<\/h2>\n
When the world could breach the 1.5-degree threshold<\/h3>\n
43 percent<\/h2>\n
How much greenhouse gas emissions must fall by 2030 to hit the temperature target<\/h3>\n
$1 trillion a year<\/h2>\n
Climate funding needs of developing countries<\/h3>\n
$7 trillion<\/h2>\n
Worldwide fossil fuel subsidies in 2022<\/h3>\n
66,000 square kilometers<\/h2>\n
Gross deforestation worldwide in 2022<\/h3>\n
Almost 1 billion tons<\/h2>\n
The annual carbon dioxide removal gap<\/h3>\n
1,000 gigawatts<\/h2>\n
Annual growth in renewable power capacity needed to keep 1.5 degrees in reach<\/h3>\n