Parties debate how to incorporate 1.5°C goal in COP30 text

It is now virtually impossible to prevent an overshoot of the Paris Agreement’s lower limit of 1.5 degree C, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) had informed world leaders gathered at the Belem Leaders’ Summit (COP30) last week.

This year is set to be either the second or third warmest year on record, according to the State of the Global Climate Update of WMO. But how the fact that the world did not manage to keep warming under 1.5 degree C, the lower limit of the Paris Agreement, can be captured in the text is being debated, say observers. The debate is also reflecting the positions and aspirations of various blocs of countries.

According to the Earth Negotiations Bulletin, for November 11, published daily by International Institute for Sustainable Development, the EU welcomed WMO’s State of the Climate Update, which noted that 2025 is on track for being the hottest on record after three years of consecutive record-breaking temperatures. But, the Arab Group and India emphasised that the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice should uphold scientific integrity, not “indulge alarmist rhetoric that is scientifically inaccurate and misleading,” and that they could not support the inclusion of language around 1.5°C warming in the draft text.

On Wednesday, while discussing preambular paragraphs, the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) and Independent Association of Latin America and the Caribbean (AILAC) highlighted recalling keeping 1.5°C within reach with the relevant Global Stocktake (GST) outcomes. The GST which was agreed on at COP28 had said that the impacts of climate change will be much lower at the temperature increase of 1.5°C compared with 2°C and resolved to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C. The EU endorsed the AOSIS and AILAC suggestions. The Arab group and India rejected linkages to the GST. The rich countries pushed for an outcome at COP30 on the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and the gap to keep 1.5°C within reach.

“The reservation for developing countries may be that the text reflect the full Paris Agreement goal. The Paris Agreement goal actually states that its goal is to hold the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels,” said a developing country negotiator who did not wish to be named. “Moreover it is not clear when the overshoot will actually happen. For developing countries the impacts of climate change and the means to adapt to those impacts are more immediate and important.”

“It’s an old fight. India had opposed earlier too. Basically their worry is that now the responsibility of keeping the temperature below 1.5°C is going to be on the emerging economies and nobody will talk about how we got there. But, India should articulate it properly outside the negotiation halls otherwise they will be misunderstood,” said Harjeet Singh, climate activist and founding director of the Satat Sampada Climate Foundation.

Observers also said that warming scenarios most often project a highly unequal future world that perpetuates most inequalities. “It is a question of how much space is there to grow since most of the carbon budget is exhausted,” an observer at COP30 said.

Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh have emphasised that the 1.5°C goal is a matter of survival for them, and urged closing the NDC ambition and implementation gap by revisiting the 2035 NDCs. They underscored the challenge of safeguarding development gains amid glacier melting and saltwater intrusion, and called for a clear pathway to $1.3 trillion and tripling adaptation finance.

Further, adding to scientific evidence, the 2025 Global Carbon Budget released on Thursday said global carbon emissions from fossil fuels are projected to rise by 1.1% in 2025 – reaching a record high. It also said that the remaining carbon budget to limit global warming to 1.5°C is “virtually exhausted”.

“The remaining carbon budget for 1.5°C, 170 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide, will be gone before 2030 at current emission rate. We estimate that climate change is now reducing the combined land and ocean sinks – a clear signal from Planet Earth that we need to dramatically reduce emissions,” said Professor Pierre Friedlingstein, of Exeter’s Global Systems Institute, who led the study.

Regionally, fossil emissions are projected to grow in 2025 in the US and the European Union, reversing long-term decreases, and also in China and India, albeit more slowly compared to recent trends, the report said.

The increase in fossil emissions in 2025 relative to 2024 is projected to be 0.4% for China, 1.9% for the United States, 1.4% for India, and 0.4% for the European Union. Projected emissions in Japan, provided this year for the first time, are for a decrease of -2.2%. Emissions are also projected to increase by 6.8% for international aviation but to remain flat for international shipping, and to increase by 1.1% for the rest of the world in aggregate.