This week’s pledges by the EU, China and other large countries for emissions cuts by 2035 are not ambitious enough to get global climate targets back on track, climate experts say.
With the US withdrawing from the Paris Agreement and President Donald Trump pouring scorn on climate action in his speech to the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, climate campaigners had hoped to see the European Union and China in particular step up. But many were disappointed by their announcements at the UN climate summit in New York on Wednesday.
“The US is absent. China and the EU have not raised each other’s ambition enough and even Australia, which is bidding to host COP31, has presented a weak target,” said Tracy Carty, a climate change politics specialist from Greenpeace International.
Chinese President Xi Jinping told the summit that China – the world’s top emitter – would cut emissions by between 7% and 10% by 2035 against peak levels. Its previous goal was for emissions to peak by around 2030.
Xi also appeared to make a dig at Trump’s climate scepticism. “While some country is acting against it, the international community should stay focused on the right direction,” he said.
His comments were echoed by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who said “the clean transition is moving on” and “Europe will stay the course”.
“Timid” Chinese goal
But some climate change experts said the substance of their announcements was underwhelming and did not match their rhetoric, calling China’s goal “timid” and too easy to meet given the country’s rapid rollout of renewables and electric vehicles.
Von der Leyen, meanwhile, announced only that the EU’s 2035 reduction target would be somewhere between 66% and 72% on 1990 levels – unable to be more specific because EU member states have yet to agree a target, with several pushing to weaken the European Commission’s ambitions.
A few big countries including Nigeria and Pakistan announced new targets. Nigeria said it would aim to cut emissions 32% below 2018 levels by 2035 – with four-fifths of this target dependent on foreign help. Pakistan will aim for 17% below a business-as-usual projection by 2035.
But many other major economies, among them India, Indonesia, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and South Korea, have yet to file their plans – despite an end of September deadline for them to be included in a UN progress report.
“Dangerously off track”
The nonprofit research group World Resources Institute (WRI) calculates that 53 governments – representing a quarter of the world’s emissions – have filed their NDCs, though that figure did not include China or the EU. The group’s CEO, Ani Dasgupta, said the new NDCs “do not put us anywhere near on track for a safe future”.
“The lack of ambition so far from most major emitters, barring a few, underscores the immense political challenge countries face in transforming their entire economy. Yet vulnerable countries continue to step up with bold climate leadership,” Dasgupta said.
Greenpeace’s Carty agreed that the NDCs are “dangerously off track and without a serious shift, we’ll soar past 1.5C”.
At ActionAid, Teresa Anderson accused governments of “running scared from the corporations that care only for short-term profits over long-term survival of the planet”.
A few voices were more positive about the new round of NDCs. Gina McCarthy, former climate adviser to then U.S. President Joe Biden, said the America Is All In coalition that she co-chairs “applauds world leaders submitting updated climate plans that align with the targets of the Paris Agreement”, and there were bright spots in leaders’ speeches.
Solar booms and legal moves
Announcing Pakistan’s new NDC, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif described how solar energy has grown seven-fold since 2021 as Pakistanis embrace rooftop solar panels to keep their lights on during frequent power cuts. Similar solar booms are happening in several blackout-afflicted African nations.
And government decisions on the NDCs may not be the final word. Leaders of the Marshall Islands and Tuvalu – both Pacific island nations that are among the most vulnerable to climate change – warned their fellow politicians that a recent International Court of Justice (ICJ) advisory opinion could mean courts force them to ramp up their climate targets and policies.
“Fellow leaders and especially those of you from the G20, if the Marshall Islands can deliver an ambitious NDC, so can you,” said Marshall Islands President Hilda Heine. “In fact, as the ICJ decision confirms, you are legally required to. You must deliver stronger NDCs that can meet 1.5C and can say how you will transition away from fossil fuels.”
On Monday, Ralph Regenvanu, the climate minister of fellow Pacific island nation Vanuatu, announced his country was drafting a UN General Assembly resolution to turn the ICJ advisory opinion into “political action”.
Regenvanu said individual governments opposed to the step would not be able to block it because the UN General Assembly votes by majority.
“There is no veto power to block this resolution going through,” Regenvanu said.
