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How domestic and local efforts measure up to landmark UN climate report

The latest United Nations report finds the world is on the brink of catastrophic warming, but there's still a chance to change course if the planet's biggest polluters can take swift action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

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By
Liz McLaughlin
, WRAL Climate Change reporter
The world is rapidly approaching catastrophic warming with international climate goals set to slip out of reach unless immediate and radical action is taken, according to a new UN-backed report.

“The climate time-bomb is ticking,” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said.

The Earth has already warmed more than 2 degrees Fahrenheit since pre-industrial times, and is projected to surpass the 2.7-degree warming limit set in the Paris agreement within the next decade, according to the report.

Jason West, an environmental sciences and engineering professor at UNC-Chapel Hill, says scientists have been sounding the climate change alarm for decades. "It's nice to see that there are at least more people paying attention," he said.

United Nations leaders are warning that the world may be nearing its last chance to prevent surpassing the dangerous climate threshold and encouraging developed nations to reach carbon neutrality by 2040, a decade sooner than the United States' current goals.

"There's really no time to lose, every fraction of a degree matters," said Cassie Flynn, United Nations Development Program Head of Climate Policy and Strategies. "We need some of these highest emitters, some of these biggest economies to move fastest, furthest."

The report comes as the U.S. continues to approve new fossil fuel projects, including a massive drilling development in Alaska known as Willow, approved by the Biden administration last week.

Nicole Ghio, a fossil fuels program manager with Friends of the Earth, one of the environmental groups pursuing litigation over the Willow project, says the new drilling endeavor is expected to emit 287 million metric tons of carbon over the next 30 years, equivalent to 76 coal plants or 56 million vehicles per year.

"Biden campaigned on a promise to stop new oil and gas development on public lands and the Willow project is really just a slap in the face to the people who elected him and anyone who is fighting climate change," Ghio said.

The UN report says there is still a chance to change course by cutting greenhouse emissions in half by 2030, a goal already adopted by North Carolina last January in Governor Roy Cooper’s Executive Order 246.

According to the North Carolina Deep Decarbonization Pathways Analysis released last month, the state is expected to miss that mark, with projections that it will only reach a 46 percent reduction in emissions by 2030.

Shawn Taylor, a public information officer with North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality's Division of Air Quality, says the state's targets align with the goals outlined by UN scientists.

According to DEQ data, the Transportation sector is the largest emissions sector and represents about 36% of all greenhouse gas emissions, surpassing energy production.

Several mandates, including Executive Order 271, outline additional efforts to reduce emissions from the transportation sector. "These efforts include accelerating the state’s transition to zero-emission cars and trucks in place of gas and diesel-powered vehicles," Taylor said.

The emission reduction projections in the DEQ’s 2022 Greenhouse Gas Inventory report found that between 2005 and 2018, North Carolina reduced gross greenhouse gas emissions by 16% and net greenhouse gas emissions by 23%. During this same time period, North Carolina’s population grew by nearly 20%.

Duke Energy spokesperson Bill Norton says there has already been strong progress in the clean energy transition and that it has retired two-thirds of coal plants in the Carolinas. "The recent the Carbon Plan order from the North Carolina Utilities Commission is an important step toward 70% carbon reduction by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2050, strongly affirming the value of a diverse, all-of-the-above approach to carbon reduction in a manner that balances affordability and reliability for customers.”

West says he thinks the Carbon Plan is a step forward, but the state could do more. "We can be more aggressive and reduce more quickly, having North Carolina play its role in helping to achieve national and international targets of where we want to see emissions go," he said.

According to the UN report, delays of even a few years for global targets could ensure a hotter and more dangerous future, with more severe and frequent disasters, droughts, and heatwaves that could claim millions of additional lives by the end of the century.

The good news is, there's still hope.

"We have the science, we have the tools, we even have the money, but what we really need is political will," Flynn said. "And we need public support for those big decisions that have to be made to transform an economy."

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