By dpa correspondents
Geneva (dpa) - Countries will not be able to agree on keeping global
warming below 2 degrees at the UN climate conference in Paris,
UN environment chief Achim Steiner said Friday, but stressed that the
meeting would set them on the right path.
Nearly 150 countries have submitted national climate protection pledges
ahead of the Paris meeting, where world leaders are to negotiate an
agreement to set the global agenda on climate change for the medium and
long term.
The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said Friday in its annual Emmissions
Gap Report that these proposed measures would result in CO2 emissions by
2030 that would be 12 to 14 gigatons higher than the level needed to meet
the international 2-degree limit until the end of the century.
"It is not yet enough. It is probably halfway of what we need to achieve on
a longer-term trajectory," UNEP Executive Director Steiner told reporters
via videolink from Nairobi.
However, Steiner stressed that the current pledges were no reason to be
pessimistic.
The current proposals still put the world on the verge of "bending the
curve" of carbon emissions downward, he said.
Negotiators who start meeting in Paris on November 30 should therefore
build in provisions into their agreement that would allow for continuously
upgrading national emission targets in the future.
"Paris will succeed if it is accelerating efforts by all countries to move
forward," Steiner said.
Asian and European foreign ministers meeting in Luxembourg agreed that
"further ambitious action is required by all parties with a view to reduce
global greenhouse gas emissions," according to a statement by the chairs of
the two-day ASEM talks, which ended Friday.
"Ministers expressed their resolve to work towards the success of the ...
Paris [talks]," it added, saying they pledged to do their part to reach an
outcome "capable of keeping the world on track for limiting the average
surface temperature rise to below 2 degrees Celsius."
Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn, who hosted the ASEM talks, said
he had particularly noted that China and India - "two very, very important
countries in this matter" - had been "engaged and also constructive."
[UNEP press conference] (Palace of Nations, 1202 Geneva, Switzerland)
Reporting by: Margarite Clarey in Geneva, Albert Otti in Vienna, Alexandra
Mayer-Hohdahl in Brussels Editing by: Anindita Ramaswamy
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