Keeping three climate promises could cut global heating by nearly 1C, analysis shows

Sticking to three key climate promises - on renewables, energy efficiency and methane - would avoid nearly 1C of global heating and give the world hope of avoiding climate breakdown, analysis published at the Cop30 climate summit suggests.

- Fiona Harvey Jonathan Watts Belém

Governments have already agreed that by 2030 they will have doubled global energy efficiency, tripled the amount of renewable energy generated and made substantial cuts to methane emissions.

If countries follow through on these promises - still a big if, even though they are meeting for climate crisis talks in Brazil this week - it would be a “gamechanger”, shaving 0.9C from projected temperature rises this century, according to the Climate Action Tracker coalition.

Achieving all of these measures among G20 countries alone would reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by 18bn tonnes in 2035 - enough to cut the rate of global heating by a third in the next decade, and halve it by 2040.

Bill Hare, chief executive of Climate Analytics, one of the organisations behind the report, said: “If [governments] achieve this by 2035, it would be a gamechanger, quickly slowing the rate of warming in the next decade and lowering global warming this century from 2.6C to about 1.7C.”