The authors of the report by Climate Action Tracker (CAT) discovered a mixed picture on the efforts of countries around the world to lower their carbon emissions.

While some countries, such as Norway and Costa Rica were found to be forging ahead with decarbonisation of transport and renewable energy deployment, others “risk” losing their climate leadership positions, such as China, where coal use rose for a second year running, and Brazil which appears to have turned away from its forest protection policies even before its recent change of government, CAT said.

In the USA the Trump Administration has continued to unwind policies designed to lower carbon emissions, but the country’s output is still slowing as coal continues to exit the power market, driven by the declining costs of renewables and storage.

The body warned that little action had been taken globally since the agreement was signed and the majority of countries that it tracked had not yet fully aligned their policies to actually achieve their commitments under the Paris Agreement.

Even a rise of 3°C could cause loss of tropical coral reefs, Alpine glaciers, Arctic summer sea ice and perhaps an irreversible melt of Greenland’s ice, which would drive up world sea levels, a United Nations science panel has said.

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said in October that keeping the rise to 1.5°C was possible but would require rapid and unprecedented changes in human behaviour.

Countries are currently meeting in Poland to agree guidelines for implementing the Paris Agreement, which comes into force in 2020, but there are concerns these will be too weak to limit temperature rise to within safe levels.

“We have yet to see this translate into action in terms of what governments are prepared to put on the table,” said Bill Hare, chief executive of Climate Analytics, one of the three CAT research groups.

“With prices for renewables dropping roughly a third since Paris, both South Africa and Chile are mapping out strategies to address coal, and renewables are taking off in India,” said Niklas Höhne of research group NewClimate Institute.

In October the IPCC published a report calling on governments to take drastic, far-reaching and immediate action to keep global warming within 1.5°C and prevent catastrophic climate change. 

The authors of the report by Climate Action Tracker (CAT) discovered a mixed picture on the efforts of countries around the world to lower their carbon emissions.

While some countries, such as Norway and Costa Rica were found to be forging ahead with decarbonisation of transport and renewable energy deployment, others “risk” losing their climate leadership positions, such as China, where coal use rose for a second year running, and Brazil which appears to have turned away from its forest protection policies even before its recent change of government, CAT said.

In the USA the Trump Administration has continued to unwind policies designed to lower carbon emissions, but the country’s output is still slowing as coal continues to exit the power market, driven by the declining costs of renewables and storage.

The body warned that little action had been taken globally since the agreement was signed and the majority of countries that it tracked had not yet fully aligned their policies to actually achieve their commitments under the Paris Agreement.

Even a rise of 3°C could cause loss of tropical coral reefs, Alpine glaciers, Arctic summer sea ice and perhaps an irreversible melt of Greenland’s ice, which would drive up world sea levels, a United Nations science panel has said.

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said in October that keeping the rise to 1.5°C was possible but would require rapid and unprecedented changes in human behaviour.

Countries are currently meeting in Poland to agree guidelines for implementing the Paris Agreement, which comes into force in 2020, but there are concerns these will be too weak to limit temperature rise to within safe levels.

“We have yet to see this translate into action in terms of what governments are prepared to put on the table,” said Bill Hare, chief executive of Climate Analytics, one of the three CAT research groups.

“With prices for renewables dropping roughly a third since Paris, both South Africa and Chile are mapping out strategies to address coal, and renewables are taking off in India,” said Niklas Höhne of research group NewClimate Institute.

In October the IPCC published a report calling on governments to take drastic, far-reaching and immediate action to keep global warming within 1.5°C and prevent catastrophic climate change.