Governments are falling far short of the promises they made to cut planet-warming pollution under the Paris climate agreement 10 years ago, the United Nations said in a report Tuesday.
Only a minority of countries have so far updated their commitments to tackling what the countries signing the pact called in 2015 “the urgent threat of climate change.” And the plans they submitted to date would cut global greenhouse gas pollution only modestly compared with levels they had pledged half a decade ago.
The lapse comes as President Donald Trump’s administration has pressured nations against measures to curb the use of fossil fuels, whose greenhouse gas emissions are increasing the dangers of a warming planet — and as rising energy prices have prompted European leaders to recommit to using energy sources such as natural gas.
Only 64 nations out of 195 parties to the Paris Agreement submitted updated domestic plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as required under the 2015 pact, the U.N. noted in its report of those commitments.
