Most big polluters miss UN deadline for 2035 climate targets

Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free

Your guide to what the 2024 US election means for Washington and the world

The EU, Australia, South Africa and India are among the big polluters which missed a UN deadline for new climate targets, coming up against economic constraints and political pressure following the Trump election.

Under the process started by the Paris Agreement signed nearly a decade ago, almost 200 countries are due to submit fresh climate plans to the UN by early next week. The plans are meant to include a country-specific headline figures for cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 2035. 

Many countries are already far off track for the 2030 targets they had set, with emissions still rising despite scientists warning that to limit global warming they must fall by almost half by the end of the decade from 2019 levels.

While a handful of nations, including the UK, have succeeded in putting forward upgraded targets, many of the world’s biggest economies missed the deadline.

Japan submitted its target, which it foreshadowed last year, a week after the deadline. Its goals are reliant on the revival of nuclear energy which had diminished as a source following the 2011 Fukushima disaster.

The order by US President Donald Trump to withdraw from the Paris Agreement to limit global warming to well below 2C and preferably 1.5C has undermined climate action.

Nick Mabey, co-founder of climate think-tank E3G, said only about one- quarter to one-third of the G20 economies had been expected to submit their targets on time. “Because of the shock of the US presidency and all the other issues, there is not a lot of leader attention on this issue,” he said.

Although there is no penalty for the failure to meet the February 10 deadline set under a UN work programme, it will deepen concerns about backtracking on climate action globally.

EU officials say the bloc will be late submitting its plan, known as a nationally determined contribution (NDC), amid concerns that its ambitious green agenda will test its economy.

Rising political strains over EU sustainability rules have also caused a delay in setting an interim emissions target for 2040, from which the 2035 figure will be drawn.

Poland, which holds the rotating chair of the EU presidency, is one of the governments that is most sceptical of climate targets and is unlikely to push the agenda ahead of presidential elections in May.

“The quality matters more than the speed of submission,” one European official said. The EU submits one overarching NDC for all countries within the bloc.

Officials in Mexico — where a new government led by climate scientist Claudia Sheinbaum came to power last year — said it would seek to submit its target around mid-year. South Africa said it aimed to have a new climate plan by around September.

People familiar with discussions said China, the world’s largest emitter on an annual basis, was still assessing geopolitical developments after the election of Trump.

Other big G20 economies, including Saudi Arabia and Indonesia, did not respond to requests for comment. But Indonesia’s energy minister has questioned the usefulness of the Paris Agreement following the US’s exit.

Argentine officials are also weighing a proposal to quit the Paris accord, although people familiar with conversations say other countries and financial bodies are attempting to persuade the Latin America country to remain in the pact.

Mabey said pushing back submissions by three to six months “was not so much a problem”, because delays would ensure countries could produce robust plans. “It would be much better if it was as high ambition as possible, but also that it was linked very clearly to both national implementation procedures and international support,” he said. 

UN climate change head Simon Stiell has described the climate plans as the most important policy documents of the century.

A UN official said the quality of the climate plans was the most important consideration and countries should take the extra time to deliver the best plans to underpin a clean energy boom worth $2tn last year.

“We also appreciate the pressures different governments are under, particularly lower-income countries which are facing severe capacity constraints, debt crises and high costs of capital,” they added.