By Emma Farge
GENEVA, Dec 8 (Reuters) - Many countries will miss a
deadline to submit updated climate action plans by 2020 as
mandated by the Paris climate pact due to COVID-19 delays, a
U.N. report said on Tuesday.
Compliance with the commitment to upgrade climate action
plans every five years is seen as important to the success of
the 2015 global pact under which nations agreed to hold warming
well below 2 degrees Celsius.
U.N. chief Antonio Guterres last week urged action on
climate change, saying humanity was waging a suicidal war on
nature. The U.N. Development Programme supports 115 of the 197
countries that signed the 2015 Paris deal through its "Climate
Promise" programme which includes many of the world's poorest
nations.
They collectively account for nearly a quarter of the
world's greenhouse gas emissions and include some high emitters
like Nigeria and Mexico.
"According to the latest intelligence from UNDP's Climate
Promise, countries continue to grapple with the timing of their
NDC submissions as the COVID-19 crisis and political shifts in
many countries continue to unfold," the report said, referring
to nationally determined contributions.
So far, just eight of the countries the UNDP programme
assists including Mongolia and Rwanda have submitted revised
climate plans and about 30 are expected to do so by year-end,
the report and a U.N. official said.
In January, more than 100 were aiming for the 2020 deadline.
However, the report showed that 70 percent of countries
indicated that they are likely to increase their ambition versus
just over 50 percent in March.
"COVID has also been an opportunity for countries to
increase their ambition and come to the table with something
that may even be more robust that it would have been otherwise,"
said UNDP's Climate Advisor Cassie Flynn.
"Now as the conversation has gone from response toward a
recovery (from the pandemic) conversation – we have really seen
climate be more a part of this," she added.
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Arctic warming cascades through ocean and over land, U.S. report
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