World leaders in Dubai for the United Nations' COP28 climate conference are confronted with a conundrum: how to save a planet that is already burning.
Preliminary data indicate that 2023 will earn the "dubious honor" of becoming the hottest year on record, according to Samantha Burgess, the director of the climate change service for the European Union. She added that "the sense of urgency for ambitious climate action has never been more critical."
Yet greenhouse gas emissions are on the rise, suggesting more climate records are likely to be shattered in the years ahead.
The EU, together with a few major historical polluters like the United States and the United Kingdom, is bucking the global trend by having cut greenhouse gas emissions by around one-third since 1990. But the EU is still far from achieving its goal of becoming climate neutral by 2050.
While acknowledging the progress made in tackling the climate crisis, the U.N. Environment Program's Emissions Gap Report, published earlier this month, points out that countries' current pledges are (once again) insufficient.
Still, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres struck a hopeful tone, arguing that "it is still possible to make the 1.5 degree [Celsius] limit a reality. It requires tearing out the poisoned root of the climate crisis: fossil fuels. And it demands a just, equitable renewables transition."