Are climate goals set in 2015 dead or alive?

“AT THE END of the COP we need to be in a position to say ‘We are still on track to be well below 2 degrees, we still have a shot at the 1.5 degrees.’ All our efforts this week should be directed at that.” Thus spoke Frans Timmermans, an EU commissioner, as the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow rolled into its final week. Unfortunately for Mr Timmermans, political resolve and climate plans do not currently add up to the demanding goals set out by the Paris agreement of limiting global warming to “well below 2°C” above preindustrial averages, let alone to keeping it as low as 1.5°C. Instead, the latest number-crunching suggests that the plans of the 193 parties to the agreement collectively carve a path to approximately 2.4°C of warming by the end of the century.