Aggressive climate pact needed to check rising emissions

London: The world needs an aggressive climate policy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in order to limit global warming to two degrees, says an analysis of the emission targets from 159 countries.

Developing countries, including India, have recently joined in the effort to slow down climate change by setting targets for reducing their emissions.

However, despite the now-stated targets, emissions will continue to increase up to 2030 and global temperature increase can be kept below the critical two degree limit only if drastic emission reductions are carried out after 2030, warn the researchers from VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland.

"The rate of emission reductions required after 2030 might not be realistic anymore and, therefore, it is critically important to make the current emission targets for 2030 more ambitious,” said senior scientist Tommi Ekholm.

VTT studied the emission reduction targets from 159 countries (131 countries and the EU) to investigate how large a reduction or increase in emissions is implied by each country's stated target.