Common-sense, planet-saving reform

Democrats and Republicans should embrace a carbon dividend.

Editorial, The Washington Post, Feb. 13, 2020

CLIMATE CHANGE was the most important issue for a quarter of voters in the Democratic primary in New Hampshire on Tuesday; only health care ranked higher, according to exit polls. Every serious Democratic candidate has a plan. Even some Republican politicians, their science-denying president notwithstanding, are concluding that action on climate is essential for their political survival as well as the planet’s well-being.

But what action? Sometimes we seem to face an unpalatable choice among President Trump’s obstruction and backsliding, feel-good Republican Band-Aids (let’s plant a few trees!) and the overweening, inefficient and ultimately unrealistic overreach of the Green New Deal. So there’s reason to celebrate the release Thursday of a climate plan by an alliance of corporations, environmental advocacy groups, economists and prominent citizens that bills itself as “the broadest climate coalition in U.S. history.”

The coalition includes giant oil companies such as ConocoPhillips and ExxonMobil, utilities (Exelon) and car manufacturers (Ford, General Motors) but also the World Resources Institute, Conservation International and the World Wildlife Fund. It has luminaries from Republican administrations, including former secretaries of state James A. Baker III and George P. Shultz, and Democratic ones, such as Janet L. Yellen, President Barack Obama’s appointment as Federal Reserve chair, and Steven Chu, Mr. Obama’s energy secretary.

What unites them is a plan that is more ambitious and effective in carbon reduction than Mr. Obama’s energy plan or the Paris accord; doesn’t increase the deficit by so much as a dime; leaves most Americans financially better off; encourages innovation; and provides an incentive for other emitters, including China and India, to act. How is that possible? The plan would levy a steadily rising tax on carbon (oil, gas, coal) to cut U.S. carbon emissions in half from 2005 levels by 2035. The timeline is aggressive — steep cuts, and soon — and there’s a backstop if they don’t materialize.

Such a tax is the best way to promote innovation, Ms. Yellen told us, and encourage firms and consumers to switch to cleaner energy (though the government would still be wise to invest in research to speed the transition). The government would remit all of the tax receipts in equal shares; a family of four would get a $2,000 dividend check every year. Seventy percent of households would get more back than they would pay in higher energy costs, with the poorest faring best.

Two other key features: The plan would impose a fee on imports from countries without comparable plans. That would keep companies from just moving factories to countries where they could emit more — and it would encourage other nations to join what would quickly become a customs union of lower emitters. And the carbon fee would replace most federal energy-sector regulation, though automobile standards, appliance efficiency regulation and state rules (if states so chose) would be retained.

That deregulation will offend advocates who would rather dictate the mix of solar, wind and other renewables to be attained. But, as long as the price continues to rise, a tax is a more efficient, predictable route to wringing carbon out of the system than bureacratic fiat could ever be. In short, the only reason for a Republican to oppose this plan is that there’s nothing here for a Democrat to dislike, and vice versa. Congress should find its way past that obstacle to embrace common-sense, planet-saving reform.

CLIMATE CHANGE'S SURPRISE TWIST

By Amy Harder

Axios, Jan. 27, 2020

The economics, politics and science of climate change are converging and catapulting this problem from a joke among critics to a prominent concern.

Driving the news: Shifts across Washington, D.C., among corporate leaders and within financial institutions are creating a foundation that could produce big movement on this problem for the first time since, well, forever.

Why it matters: If the world’s political and business leaders are going to seriously move to cut heat-trapping emissions, they first need to pay attention to the problem. They are starting to now, fueled by unrest from the world’s youth, cheaper renewable energy, more bouts of extreme weather and other evidence of global warming itself.

The big picture: We’ve written about these shifts individually here and here and here over the past year or more. It’s worth examining them together as a whole because the amount of new attention on climate that’s occurred in a matter of weeks is staggering.

• Big caveats exist and the prospect of substantive action on the problem remains deeply uncertain, but the arc of change is forming.

In Washington, congressional Republicans and even President Trump are scrambling to acknowledge the problem after years of denying it — and in some cases mocking it outright.

• At the World Economic Forum in Davos last week, Trump announced the U.S. would support an initiative to plant trees — natural ways to capture carbon dioxide emissions — even as he slammed climate activists as “prophets of doom.”

• For the first time ever, the House GOP leadership is pushing policies to address the problem.

• These policies, in and of themselves, aren't nearly enough to sufficiently tackle the problem, but the shift in GOP rhetoric over just the past year has been stark.

• Flat-out denialism of humans' role in warming the planet has all but disappeared.

“The issue of climate and the environment is rising in priority for the American voter and you’re seeing the political dynamic shift where people are really demanding their elected officials to address this problem,” Rep. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.) told me last week.

Among corporate executives and financial leaders, climate change is quickly becoming a concrete worry. In addition to it being the sole official topic of the World Economic Forum last week in Davos for the first time, pronouncements on the matter have come from the following entities in just the last several weeks:

• BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager.

• The International Monetary Fund, whose mission is to ensure global financial stability.

• Most of the world’s central banks, including America’s, and the Bank for International Settlements, known as the central bank for banks.

• Commitments keep rolling in from corporate America, but in a month's time, news has broken about goals from Goldman Sachs, BP, Microsoft, Starbucks, utility Arizona Public Service and Pepsi.

These pronouncements — which, by the way, are mostly just rhetoric for now — aren’t coming out of the goodness of the hearts of the rich and powerful. They're coming from a messy mix of activist and investor pressure and an increasing awareness that as extreme weather becomes more common, its economic toll could too.

• Climate generated the highest degree of public pressure on corporations by activists, policymakers and journalists last year, according to data analyzed by consultancy High Lantern Group.

Skeptics of this newfound attention to climate change among corporate leaders point to a survey released last week in Davos showing that the topic didn’t even break the top 10 list of risks company CEOs say they’re facing.

• This highlights the inherent mismatch of a risk like climate change that unfolds over decades, if not centuries, and the challenges facing publicly traded companies trying to turn quarterly profits.

• That’s why right now we’re seeing stronger rhetoric from money managers and financial institutions whose missions are more rooted in longer term risks.

But, but, but: All this does not necessitate a path to big global action to curb emissions. It lays the foundation for that, but a lot more would have to happen to make actual change possible.

• Goals from corporate and financial entities deserves close and frequent scrutiny for how much is substantive and how much is extra-heavy greenwashing.

• Trump continues to roll back climate policies, and the Paris Climate Agreement's goals are in serious doubt.

Another big caveat is that although climate change itself poses huge risks, aggressively acting on it does too — and those risks are realized far more quickly and thus may have swift political consequences hindering more action.

• For example, when energy prices rise, especially when it happens quickly, populations have shown to respond angrily. I’ve called this the big climate disconnect.

What I’m watching: The levers that could incite change — namely, big government policy — from this newfound foundation of attention, including this one:

• To what degree the current economic status quo of corporate profits becomes threatened seriously enough that businesses really start to lobby Congress for new policy. Big action on climate change is never going to come from pure altruism or activism; an existing economic reason must exist too.

Big Business Says It Will Tackle Climate Change, but Not How or When

In Davos, business leaders were newly vocal about the danger, though they gave few details about how they would reform their practices.

By David Gelles & Somini Sengupta

NY Times, Jan. 23, 2020

DAVOS, Switzerland — Business titans who for decades brushed off warnings about climate change arrived at the annual World Economic Forum this week ready to show their newfound enthusiasm for the cause.

Having previously played down the need for the reform that scientists had urged, finance leaders and company chiefs conspicuously rallied around a consensus that accelerating global temperatures pose a significant risk to society — and to business.

Missing, though, was a clear answer to the question of what exactly they would do about it and how quickly.

“It’s an increase in rhetoric, absolutely,” said Alison Martin, who leads the Europe, Middle East and Africa divisions of Zurich Insurance. “Will we see a walking of the talking? The jury is out.”

After months of global climate protests that drew millions of young people, a raft of companies said this week in Davos that they would aim to lower their emissions of planet-warming gases to net zero by 2050 or earlier. A coalition of major financial institutions, representing $4.3 trillion in assets, said it would take steps to minimize carbon-heavy investments in its portfolios and lobbied other investors to join it.

A group of 140 of the world’s largest companies pledged to develop a core set of common metrics to track environmental and social responsibility. And companies and government leaders, including President Trump, who has rolled back dozens of environmental and climate policies, said they would aim to plant one trillion new trees around the world, at the behest of Marc Benioff.

“The tree is a bipartisan issue,” said Mr. Benioff, a co-founder and the co-chief executive of Salesforce. “No one is anti-tree.”

The window of time to avert the worst impacts of climate change is rapidly closing, according to numerous scientific reports. And while critics blame big business for decades of inaction, as well as the active suppression of climate science, many major companies now acknowledge the immediate need for change.

“The measurements all show that we are clearly not doing enough yet,” Feike Sijbesma, the chief executive of DSM, a Dutch health company, said at Davos.

The pledges were the latest in a string of climate-related announcements in recent weeks.

BlackRock, the world’s largest institutional investor, said it would place climate change at the center of its investment strategy. Microsoft said it would not only go carbon negative — reducing more greenhouse gases than it adds to the environment — but also somehow remove all the emissions the company has ever produced. Lloyds, the British financial group, pledged to cut by “more than 50 percent” the carbon emissions generated by the projects it finances by 2030.

Larry Fink, BlackRock’s chief executive, showed up to meetings wearing a wool scarf that represented the decades of warming since the industrial age, a Christmas present from a nonprofit organization that works on climate issues.

“I’ve never seen a social issue explode like this,” said Paul Tudor Jones II, the investor and founder of Just Capital, which ranks companies based on sustainability factors. “Every single C.E.O. and board is having to figure out what their carbon footprint is and what they’re going to do about it.”

Behind this flurry of corporate commitments is a growing concern about tangible risks to the bottom line, including the prospect that ratings agencies will factor in climate risk, pressure from younger employees, changing consumer preferences and government regulations like a carbon tax.

Extreme weather events are already causing economic havoc. The California wildfires last year were estimated to have caused $25.4 billion in damage. Pacific Gas & Electric, the largest energy producer in the state, has filed for bankruptcy.

Jesper Brodin, the chief executive of Ikea, said his company was already feeling the impact. Severe flooding in the United States temporarily closed many of its stores. Energy prices in Sweden skyrocketed during a recent heat wave. Fires in Australia have disrupted business there.

Arne Sorenson, the chief executive of Marriott, said the hotel chain was also feeling the brunt. “We have hotels in Puerto Rico that are still closed,” he said. “We’re going to see the impact of fires and storms.”

A report this week from the Bank for International Settlements, which represents central banks, said climate change could cause the next financial crisis. Mark Carney, the departing Bank of England governor who has spearheaded efforts to get central banks to carry out stress tests assessing climate impacts on sectors, said companies needed to examine and disclose their strategies and timelines for lowering their carbon footprints.

“This is a whole-of-economy transition. In every sector, there will be companies that will be part of the solution,” Mr. Carney said. “Those who lag are going to be punished.”

Despite talk of the risks, few companies and investors provided details at Davos on how they would rapidly transition away from an economy based on fossil fuels. Just a fraction of global businesses currently disclose the financial risks posed by climate change. Even fewer have set their own targets and timetables to do what the science demands: Reduce total greenhouse gas emissions by half over the next decade.

While global investment in renewable energy hit $289 billion in 2018, far exceeding the investment in new fossil fuel power, wind and solar remain a small portion of total energy production.

Ms. Martin, of Zurich Insurance, said the real evidence of change would come when investors started exiting carbon-heavy companies, especially those with no transition plan. “What is going to cause the change?” she added. “If capital actually does start to fly, if it does actually make choices.”

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin ridiculed calls for fossil fuel divestment, singling out the teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg, who called on the Davos crowd on Tuesday to immediately halt investments in oil, gas and coal.

Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Mr. Mnuchin belittled Ms. Thunberg. “After she goes and studies economics in college, she can come back and explain that to us,” he said.

Ms. Thunberg responded tartly on Twitter, saying that “it doesn’t take a college degree in economics to realise that our remaining 1.5° carbon budget and ongoing fossil fuel subsidies and investments don’t add up.”

Mr. Mnuchin also played down the need for new regulation. “We don’t believe there should be carbon taxes,” he said on CNBC. “We want to cut taxes. We think that industry can deal with this issue on its own.”

The World Economic Forum’s annual global risk report this year ranked climate and environmental hazards as the top five concerns facing the world in the next decade for the first time. But a separate survey of business executives about the top 10 risks in the next 12 months made no mention of climate.

One measure of a newfound awareness, said Stefan Rahmstorf, a climate scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, was how many invitations that researchers like him were now receiving from the titans of global capital. Dr. Rahmstorf said that while he was frustrated that the business community had for decades blocked efforts to address rising greenhouse gas emissions, he was also hopeful about the change he was witnessing.

“The business community is increasingly not trying to lobby against decarbonization and solving the climate crisis,” he said. “They are realizing something has to be done and something has to change.”

Republicans came to the table on climate this year

Op-ed by Jim Tolbert, Conservative Outreach Director, Citizens’ Climate Lobby

The Hill, Dec. 30, 2019

In the whirlwind that is our current political environment, you might have missed one particular gust that swept through Congress this year: elected Republicans have shifted dramatically on climate change. The change is due in part to encouragement from conservative voters. Today, we see Republicans in Congress getting engaged on the issue, bringing to the table conservative solutions that protect hardworking Americans and ensure prosperity in our economy.

This year, freshman Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) told the Washington Examiner, “I’m not afraid to talk about climate change. … We’re obviously pumping more CO2 into the air, and there’s a thing called the greenhouse effect.” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) agrees, saying, “I’m a Republican who believes the greenhouse gas effect is real, that climate change is being affected by manmade behavior.”

In March, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) said there’s “no question that we’re experiencing climate change and that humans are a significant contributor.” Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) said everyone in his agriculture-heavy state of Kansas realizes climate change is happening, calling the issue “obvious.” Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), who represents America’s largest coal producing state , said, “The climate is changing and we, collectively, have a responsibility to do something about it.”

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) might have put it best when he posted on Facebook, “I didn't come to Congress to argue with a thermometer. [...] The science of global warming is irrefutable.” In May, Texas Sen. John Cornyn told the Houston Chronicle bluntly, “The days of ignoring this issue are over.”

There’s clearly agreement within the party that climate change needs to be addressed. With that in mind, Republican officials have begun stepping down a path to protect rural Americans and coal communities, stimulate innovation, and use market forces (not regulations) to reduce emissions.

This year, 14 Republicans in the House worked across the aisle on the RECLAIM Act, which would help diversify the economies of coal communities as our country transitions to clean energy. Romney said explicitly that we should “help the communities that are affected by the change in technology: the rural areas, the coal country.” With Republicans engaged in the conversation about climate solutions, we can make sure these communities are protected.

Republicans also supported technological innovations such as carbon capture and storage. The bipartisan USE IT Act had support from more than 25 Republicans in the Senate and the House. This bill authorizes $35 million in competitive prize funding for direct air capture technologies and allocates $50 million toward research and development of technologies that transform captured carbon dioxide into commercial products. The bill passed the Senate as part of the National Defense Authorization Act this summer. This type of legislation directly addresses our desire to secure America’s place as “a leader in innovation,” as Sen. Graham has said. After all, as Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.) says, “We led the world with coal and oil and gas development. Now we need to do it with growing clean energy markets” and cutting edge energy technology.

Republicans are also working to unleash the power of the American free market on the challenge of lowering emissions. Specifically, a price on carbon is a market-friendly policy mechanism that Republicans are coalescing around. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) introduced the MARKET CHOICE Act, which would put a fee on carbon emissions to reduce them, while also eliminating the gas tax and investing in America’s infrastructure.

Rep. Francis Rooney (R-Fla.) is an original co-sponsor of Energy Innovation Act (H.R. 763), another innovative, market-driven policy. This bill will put a price on carbon pollution and give carbon dividends to every American. It will give businesses clarity about what choices will be best for the bottom line and for the environment, helping them plan for a prosperous future. At the same time, it makes sure most hardworking Americans come out ahead, with more money in their pockets than before. This bipartisan legislation has 75 co-sponsors in the House.

In addition to the legislation put forth this year, a group of Republican senators is laying groundwork for more climate legislation to come. Senators Braun, Graham, Lisa. Murkowski (R-Alaska), Romney, and Rubio have joined the bipartisan Senate Climate Solutions Caucus. According to Murkowski, the group will “advance timely, pragmatic policies that will help lower our greenhouse gas emissions and address the threatening reality of climate change.”

I am encouraged that Republican leaders are working on an issue I hold as important. I find that I’m not alone—many other conservatives are concerned about the climate debt we’re passing on to our children, and their concern is showing up in public polling. Luntz Global found that GOP voters, by a two-to-one margin, support the idea of putting a price on carbon and returning carbon dividends to Americans. Young Republicans in particular are eager for this type of conservative climate policy: 75 percent say they support it.

Conservative voters will only get more vocal on this issue in 2020. College Republicans just launched a new advocacy group called Young Conservatives for Carbon Dividends, which will lobby Republicans to throw more support behind carbon dividend legislation. On Feb. 4, dozens of conservatives from Citizens’ Climate Lobby, a nonpartisan advocacy group, will meet with Republican offices on the Hill specifically about climate change. I’ll be among them. 

Republican members of Congress are comfortable acknowledging the problem of climate change now. I’m optimistic we’ll see them address it, while keeping conservative values and priorities front and center.

Carbon Dioxide Emissions Hit a Record in 2019, Even as Coal Fades

By Brad Plumer, New York Times, Dec. 4, 2019

WASHINGTON — Emissions of planet-warming carbon dioxide from fossil fuels hit a record high in 2019, researchers said Tuesday, putting countries farther off course from their goal of halting global warming.

The new data contained glimmers of good news: Worldwide, industrial emissions are on track to rise 0.6 percent this year, a considerably slower pace than the 1.5 percent increase seen in 2017 and the 2.1 percent rise in 2018. The United States and the European Union both managed to cut their carbon dioxide output this year, while India’s emissions grew far more slowly than expected.

And global emissions from coal, the worst-polluting of all fossil fuels, unexpectedly declined by about 0.9 percent in 2019, although that drop was more than offset by strong growth in the use of oil and natural gas around the world.

Scientists have long warned, however, that it’s not enough for emissions to grow slowly or even just stay flat in the years ahead. In order to avoid many of the most severe consequences of climate change — including deadlier heat waves, fiercer droughts, and food and water shortages — global carbon dioxide emissions would need to steadily decline each year and reach roughly zero well before the end of the century.

“Every year that emissions go up, even if it’s just a small amount, makes the task of bringing them back down that much harder,” said Glen Peters, research director at the Center for International Climate Research in Norway, who helped compile the data.

The new emissions figures, reported by the Global Carbon Project and published simultaneously in three scientific journals, arrived as diplomats from more than 190 nations gathered in Madrid for another round of United Nations talks on how to strengthen their efforts to rein in the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming.

So far, progress has been sluggish, the new reports warn. During the 2000s, global fossil-fuel emissions were rising by roughly 3 percent each year on average, driven in large part by rapid coal-fueled growth in China. Since 2010, emissions have grown more slowly, by about 0.9 percent per year on average, as China’s need for new coal plants has waned and governments around the world have tried to promote cleaner technologies like electric cars, wind and solar power.

“I do think global and national policies are making a difference, particularly by driving the rapid growth in renewables, and we’d be worse off without them,” said Rob Jackson, a professor of earth system science at Stanford University and an author of one of the studies published Tuesday. “But at the same time, it’s clear those policies haven’t been enough to stop the growth in fossil fuels.”

The new data shows that natural gas, which is less polluting than coal but still a fossil fuel, has become the biggest driver of emissions growth globally in recent years. Japan, for instance, has relied on imported natural gas to replace many of the carbon-free nuclear plants that were closed down after the 2011 accident at the Fukushima Daiichi power station. And a boom in hydraulic fracturing has recently made natural gas the largest source of electricity in the United States, where it helps fill the gaps during lulls in wind and solar production.

“Natural gas may produce fewer carbon emissions than coal, but that just means you cook the planet a bit more slowly,” said Dr. Peters. “And that’s before even getting into the worries about methane leaks” from gas infrastructure.

A handful of countries account for the majority of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions each year, with China responsible for 26 percent, the United States 14 percent, the European Union 9 percent and India 7 percent. The new reports show how each region is grappling with its own unique challenges.

China’s emissions are projected to rise by about 2.6 percent this year as the government continues to invest in new infrastructure to stimulate its slowing economy. While coal emissions in China grew by just 0.8 percent, the country is quickly expanding its appetite for oil to fuel cars and trucks, and natural gas to heat homes and power factories.

In the United States, carbon dioxide emissions are on track to fall roughly 1.7 percent in 2019, thanks to a sharp decline in coal-fired electricity. Still, this year’s drop in United States emissions isn’t expected to be enough to offset the 2.8 percent increase in 2018, suggesting that the country is struggling to control emissions at a time when the Trump administration has moved to roll back Obama-era regulations on carbon pollution from vehicle tailpipes and power-plant smokestacks.

The European Union’s emissions are also on track to fall 1.7 percent this year as the continent’s emissions-trading system helped push roughly one-fifth of its coal power off the grid. At the same time, Europe also saw an increase in demand for diesel and aviation fuel, indicating that policymakers are failing to curtail emissions from cars, trucks and planes even as they lay out big plans to promote electric vehicles.

India, which is trying to lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, was perhaps the biggest surprise in the new data. India’s emissions are expected to rise a mere 1.8 percent this year after an 8 percent increase in 2018.

Some of that slowdown, the researchers noted, can be explained by weaker economic growth and an unexpectedly strong monsoon season that allowed the country to generate more electricity from its emissions-free hydroelectric dams and less from its coal plants. But India’s government is also pursuing big plans to promote solar power and electric vehicles, and it remains to be seen whether those policies can help the country constrain future emissions.

“India is still a big wild card” for projections of future emissions, Dr. Jackson said. “So getting a handle on how much of that drop was anomalous weather and how much a change in the long-term trend is really important.”

‘Bleak’ U.N. Report on a Planet in Peril Looms Over New Climate Talks

By Somini Sengupta, New York Times, Nov. 26, 2019

With world leaders gathering in Madrid next week for their annual bargaining session over how to avert a climate catastrophe, the latest assessment issued by the United Nations said Tuesday that greenhouse gas emissions are still rising dangerously.

“The summary findings are bleak,” said the annual assessment, which is produced by the United Nations Environment Program and is formally known as the Emissions Gap Report. Countries have failed to halt the rise of greenhouse gas emissions despite repeated warnings from scientists, with China and the United States, the two biggest polluters, further increasing their emissions last year.

The result, the authors added, is that “deeper and faster cuts are now required.”

As if to underscore the gap between reality and diplomacy, the international climate negotiations, scheduled to begin next week, are not even designed to ramp up pledges by world leaders to cut their countries’ emissions. That deadline is still a year away.

Rather, this year’s meetings are intended to hammer out the last remaining rules on how to implement the 2015 Paris climate accord, in which every country pledged to rein in greenhouse gases, with each setting its own targets and timetables.

“Madrid is an opportunity to get on course to get the speed and trajectory right,” said Rachel Kyte, a former United Nations climate diplomat who is now dean of the Fletcher School at Tufts University. “What the Emissions Gap Report does is take away any remaining plausible deniability that the current trajectory is not good enough.”

The world’s 20 richest countries, responsible for more than three-fourths of worldwide emissions, must take the biggest, swiftest steps to move away from fossil fuels, the report emphasized. The richest country of all, the United States, however, has formally begun to pull out of the Paris accord.

Global greenhouse gas emissions have grown by 1.5 percent every year over the last decade, according to the annual assessment. The opposite must happen if the world is to avoid the worst effects of climate change, including more intense droughts, stronger storms and widespread hunger by midcentury. To stay within relatively safe limits, emissions must decline sharply, by 7.6 percent every year, between 2020 and 2030, the report warned.

Separately, the World Meteorological Organization reported on Monday that emissions of three major greenhouse gases — carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide — have all swelled in the atmosphere since the mid-18th century.

“We are sleepwalking toward a climate catastrophe and need to wake up and take urgent action,” said Alden Meyer, director of policy and strategy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, on a phone call with reporters Tuesday after the publication of the report.

Even if every country fulfills its current pledges under the Paris Agreement — and many, including the United States, Brazil and Australia, are currently not on track to do so — the Emissions Gap Report found average temperatures are on track to rise by 3.2 degrees Celsius from the baseline average temperature at the start of the industrial age.

According to scientific models, that kind of temperature rise sharply increases the likelihood of extreme weather events, the accelerated melting of glaciers and swelling seas — all endangering the lives of billions of people.

The Paris Agreement resolved to hold the increase in global temperatures well below 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit; last year, a United Nations-backed panel of scientists said the safer limit was to keep it to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

There are many ways to reduce emissions: quitting the combustion of fossil fuels, especially coal, the world’s dirtiest fossil fuel; switching to renewable energy like solar and wind power; moving away from gas- and diesel-guzzling cars; and halting deforestation.

In fact, many countries are headed in the wrong direction. A separate analysis made public this month looked at how much coal, oil and natural gas the world’s nations have said they expect to produce and sell through 2030. If all those fossil fuels were ultimately extracted and burned, the report found, countries would collectively miss their climate pledges, as well as the global 2 degree Celsius target, by an even larger margin than previously thought.

A number of countries around the world, including Canada and Norway, have made plans to reduce emissions at home while expanding fossil-fuel production for sale abroad, that report noted.

“At a global level, it doesn’t add up,” said Michael Lazarus, a lead author of the report and director of the Stockholm Environment Institute’s United States Center. To date, he noted, discussions on whether and how to curb the production of fossil fuels have been almost entirely absent from international climate talks.

The International Energy Agency recently singled out the proliferation of sport utility vehicles, noting that the surge of S.U.V.s, which consume more gasoline than conventional cars, could wipe out much of the oil savings from a nascent electric-car boom.

“For 10 years, the Emissions Gap Report has been sounding the alarm — and for 10 years, the world has only increased its emissions,” the United Nations Secretary General, António Guterres, said in a statement. “There has never been a more important time to listen to the science. Failure to heed these warnings and take drastic action to reverse emissions means we will continue to witness deadly and catastrophic heat waves, storms and pollution.”

The pressure on world leaders to pivot away from fossil fuels and rebuild the engine of the global economy comes at a time when the appetite for international cooperation is extremely low, nationalist sentiments are on the rise, and several world leaders have deep ties to the industries that are the biggest sources of planet-warming emissions.

If there’s any good news in the report, it’s that the current trajectory is not as dire as it was before countries around the world started taking steps to cut their emissions. The 2015 Emissions Gap Report said that, without any climate policies at all, the world was likely to face around 4 degrees Celsius of warming.

Coal use is declining sharply, especially in the United States and Western Europe, according to an analysis by Carbon Brief. Renewable energy is expanding fast, though not nearly as fast as necessary. City and state governments around the world, including in the United States, are rolling out stricter rules on tailpipe pollution from cars.

Young people are protesting by the millions in rich and poor countries alike. Even in the United States, with its persistent denialist movement, how to deal with climate change is a resonant issue in the presidential campaign.