Media coverage

The United States and Russia yesterday joined Norway, Mexico, Switzerland and the European Union in becoming the first governments to set new targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions and explain to the world how they plan to meet those goals.

Facing Republican resistance at home and delays abroad, the Obama administration Tuesday pledged its most ambitious target yet for cutting global warming pollution.

US, Europe and others file plans, with most expected to reveal greenhouse gas-reduction commitments by July.

The pledge represents the U.S.’s most ambitious climate targets to date — but will they be enough to meet the internationally agreed-upon target of limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius?

The US has set out its contribution to a new international climate change agreement, due to be agreed in Paris this December. Analysis by Climate Action Tracker suggests the US pledge is not consistent with a two degrees path and can only be considered a "fair share" of action if the cost of reducing US emissions is high in global terms. To make the pledge compatible with a two degrees pathway, other countries would need to make more ambitious efforts than the US.

On Tuesday, the U.S. submitted its first-ever official, internationally recognized plan to limit greenhouse gas emissions beyond 2020. Problem is, it’s pretty much just a retread of the path the U.S. is already on, which isn’t enough to keep global warming from crossing the “dangerous” two degree Celsius threshold—a point above which scientific consensus paints an increasingly bleak future, with global impacts capable of destabilizing human society.

“While there has been some progress in what governments are proposing for the post 2020 period, with several countries moving from “inadequate” to “medium”, proposals are still a long way from being 2C compatible,” said Bill Hare of Climate Analytics.

Australia risks failing “the most important test of climate credibility this decade”, a leading think-tank has warned.

The world's energy-related carbon dioxide emissions stopped rising in 2014, even as the economy grew, according to early data released by the International Energy Agency (IEA).

This week Climate Analytics, a research organisation led by several IPCC authors, published what is probably the most rigorous attempt to apply IPCC science to net-zero emissions. It offers different pathways to 1.5 or two degrees, depending on how quickly emissions are cut in the next five years and how certain we want to be that warming limits won't be exceeded.