UN climate chief: Carbon dioxide savings plans submitted for global summit fall short

A few months before the COP26 global climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland, the United Nations climate chief has called on the international community to make more ambitious plans to reduce greenhouse gas emission.

Patricia Espinosa said on Saturday that significantly more countries had submitted their plans for emissions reduction by Friday's deadline than had been submitted six months earlier.

However, only 58% of the countries have met the cut-off deadline, and proposals were often not ambitious enough.

So far, the joint efforts have fallen far short of the requirements of science, she said.

Experts agree that much more needs to be done worldwide by 2030 if global temperatures are to remain well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, as agreed by almost 200 countries in Paris in 2015.

The earth has already heated up by around 1.2 degrees compared to pre-industrial times. The COP26 in Glasgow in November is considered an important milestone.

To reach the target, emissions would have to be cut by 45% by the end of this decade compared to 2010 levels, Espinosa said.

"Recent extreme heat waves, droughts and floods across the globe are a dire warning that much more needs to be done, and much more quickly, to change our current pathway," the U.N. climate chief said.

For this to happen, however, more ambitious goals must be issued and implemented.