According to a study by the renowned Reuters Foundation, many developments in the global economy are heading in the wrong direction, and the Climate Agreements of the Paris Accord (2015) will not be met.
This emerges from new research figures from the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the ClimateWorks Foundation.
For instance, little progress has been made in recent years in reducing emissions from agricultural production, which grew by 3 percent between 2012 and 2017, according to the report. Emissions from agriculture are expected to increase by nearly one third over the next thirty years.
However, according to the report, these percentages would actually need to significantly decrease under Paris-2015 targets in order to keep the global temperature rise under 1.5°C.
Attempts to halt deforestation, especially in tropical areas, are also failing, said co-author of the report Katie Lebling. “Deforestation is increasing – it should be decreasing,” Lebling, a staff member of the WRI climate program, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
The report examined global progress in climate policy across six sectors: energy, buildings, industry, transport, forests, and agriculture.
It shows that air pollution from cement and steel production accounts for nearly half of all industrial emissions worldwide. To meet climate targets, cement emissions worldwide would need to drop by 85 to 91 percent and steel emissions by 93 to 100 percent by 2050, according to estimates in the report.