100 days to save the world

Current pollution reduction pledges for the Paris agreement put the world on a much more dangerous path, one leading to an expected 2.9 to 3.1 degrees Celsius of warming, according to the Climate Action Tracker, which measures the impact of the Paris pledges. (Without those pledges, the situation would be much worse, with global temperatures expected to rise 3.6 to 4.2 degrees, the tracker shows).

In the United States, President Barack Obama recently announced the Clean Power Plan, which aims to use the U.S. government’s regulatory authority to curb pollution from coal-fired power plants.

“It really bends the curve” in global emissions, said Bill Hare, founder and CEO of Climate Analytics, a nonprofit that tracks pollution reduction pledges against the 2 degrees goal. “That is new.”