Climate future needs new NDCs

Countries at COP30 must expand climate ambitions and commit to shorter time frames

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Inthe run-up to COP30— it began in Belém, Brazil, on Monday — the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) projected a 70% chance that the average warming over the next five years will exceed 1.5 degrees above the pre-industrial level.

The 1.5-degree target adopted in the Paris Agreement refers to the average warming over the long term (20 years). But the WMO's projected short-term spike is a portent of the accelerating climate crisis, and serves asa reminder of both the vast gap between action taken and action needed to contain warming within the 1.5degree cap —which avoids cataclysmic effects —and the little time left to bridge this gap.