Goal 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts
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The greenhouse gas emissions from human activities are driving
climate change and continue to rise. They are now at their highest
levels in history. Global emissions of carbon dioxide have increased by
almost 50% since 1990.
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The atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane, and
nitrous oxide have increased to levels unprecedented in at least the
last 800,000 years. Carbon dioxide concentrations have increased by 40%
since pre-industrial times, primarily from fossil fuel emissions and
secondarily from net land use change emissions. The ocean has absorbed
about 30% of the emitted anthropogenic carbon dioxide, causing ocean
acidification.
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Each of the last three decades has been successively warmer at the
Earth’s surface than any preceding decade since 1850. In the Northern
Hemisphere, 1983-2012 was likely the warmest 30-year period of the last
1,400 years.
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From 1880 to 2012, average global temperature increased by 0.85°C.
Without action, the world’s average surface temperature is projected to
rise over the 21st century and is likely to surpass 3 degrees Celsius
this century – with some areas of the world, including in the tropics
and subtropics, expected to warm even more. The poorest and most
vulnerable people are being affected the most.
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The rate of sea level rise since the mid-19th century has been
larger than the mean rate during the previous two millennia. Over the
period 1901 to 2010, global mean sea level rose by 0.19 [0.17 to 0.21]
meters.
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From 1901 to 2010, the global average sea level rose by 19 cm as
oceans expanded due to warming and melted ice. The Arctic’s sea ice
extent has shrunk in every successive decade since 1979, with 1.07
million km² of ice loss every decade.
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It is still possible, using an array of technological measures and
changes in behaviour, to limit the increase in global mean temperature
to two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
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There are multiple mitigation pathways to achieve the substantial
emissions reductions over the next few decades necessary to limit, with a
greater than 66% chance, the warming to 2ºC – the goal set by
governments. However, delaying additional mitigation to 2030 will
substantially increase the technological, economic, social and
institutional challenges associated with limiting the warming over the
21 century to below 2 ºC relative to pre-industrial levels <.li>
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India has committed to reduce the emissions intensity of its GDP by 20 to 25% by 2020.
