THE CLIMATE PROMISES THAT MUST BE KEPT
We are in the most important decade we have ever faced. The decisions made in the coming months will define our future.
Our leaders have already made the most important promise they could make: the promise of a safer climate for our children, for wildlife, for all of us. Now we must hold them to their word.
Our future is in their hands. We won't forget our leaders have promised to:
1. Keep the climate as safe as possible
Our government – along with other world leaders – have promised to do everything they can to keep our climate as safe as possible. The G7 have stated their aim to limit the rise in global temperatures to 1.5°C.
Status: Our analysis shows that if countries only delivered on their current plans, the world would heat up far beyond even 2°C. This would be a devastating future for people and wildlife.
2. Stop increasing carbon in the atmosphere
The UK Government promised – and put into law – that the UK would stop increasing carbon in the atmosphere within 30 years. This is known as getting to ‘Net Zero’, and they promised it would be done by 2050 at the latest.
Status: Their own climate watchdog says that progress is way off track, and that they’ve been too slow to follow their promises with delivery. Analysis shows nearly every sector is off track and, so far, we haven’t seen a detailed plan of action to change that. But there’s still time to turn this around.
3. Protect our forests
The UK Government has promised to protect forests like the Amazon – which are crucial to fighting climate change because they absorb lots of carbon from the atmosphere.
Status: Our report shows that UK products could still be fuelling fires in places like the Amazon. And, as they stand, new laws proposed in the Government’s Environment Bill wouldn’t stop the Amazon being destroyed for products that could be sold right here in the UK.
4. Make our money greener
World leaders – including the UK – have promised to help the finance sector get to net zero: stopping our banks investing in dirty fossil fuels or the destruction of our forests.
Status: Our report shows that emissions financed from UK banks and asset managers are currently responsible for nearly double the UK’s annual carbon emissions. We’re yet to see evidence of how government intends to make sure the finance sector moves to net zero.
5. Work with nature to tackle the climate crisis
Our government has promised us that they will make sure nature is at the heart of actions to tackle the climate crisis – and at the heart of the UN climate summit. From more trees to healthy oceans, wetland and peatlands, nature can help us tackle the climate crisis.
Status: Nature’s potential for climate action isn’t fully used in national climate plans around the world. Our analysis shows that even in the UK’s own climate plan, ‘there is insufficient information about how the UK will deliver the nature-based solutions to which it has committed’.
Why we won't forget
Climate Impacts
Atlantic puffins
These beautiful little birds can be seen in various locations around the UK each summer - they migrate here to breed. But as climate change causes changes to the start and end of seasons, migrating animals can find that they arrive at breeding grounds at the wrong time - before food is available, for example. And the prey that seabirds rely on to feed their chicks is moving as seas warm, as well as being overfished. All of these are adding up and causing numbers of puffins to fall sharply.
Snow leopards
Warming in the Himalayas has already occurred at three times the global average. This is prime snow leopard habitat and continued warming will cause their range to shrink as the treeline moves higher up the mountains. This will not only fragment and isolate snow leopard populations, but it will severely affect their prey too.
More about snow leopards
Tigers
Tiger numbers in the wild have declined to as few as 3,200, largely due to poaching and habitat loss. Climate change is likely to result in increasing sea levels and further risk of fire in the already fragmented habitats where tigers live.
More about tigers
Port Heiden
The people of Port Heiden in Alaska, have had to relocate their entire community due to coastal erosion.
Find out more about communities coping with climate change
Chittagong
In Bangladesh, people are already facing the impacts of flooding. As temperatures rise, studies suggest that Bangladesh will be hit by increasing river floods, more intense tropical cyclones, very high temperatures, and rising sea-levels
Find out more about communities coping with climate change
UK
Climate impacts are already affecting people’s lives right here in the UK. In the last few years alone, we’ve seen the highest temperature ever recorded, a winter maximum record (reaching more than 20C in winter for the first time ever), and the wettest day on record.
WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP
We have a chance. To slow down climate change, restore our one shared home and survive. But every climate promise must be kept.
Remind our leaders
Donate to our climate crisis fund
