- Madrid's Carvajal to miss several months after serious knee injury
- Two elephants die in flash flooding in northern Thailand
- Sabalenka targets world number one and Wuhan hat-trick
- Tunisia votes with Saied set for re-election
- Bagnaia sets 'example' with Japan MotoGP win to cut gap on Martin
- Intense Israeli bombing rocks Beirut ahead of war anniversary
- Mozambique vote: no suspense but some disillusion
- Austrian rapper channels anti-racist rage in Romani hip-hop songs
- Ohtani magic powers Dodgers over Padres in MLB playoff thriller
- Five of the best: Pakistan-England Test thrillers
- Man sets arm on fire as marches across US mark Gaza war anniversary
- Vietnam's young coffee entrepreneurs brew up a revolution
- Trump rallies at site of failed assassination: 'Never quit'
- Too hot by day, Dubai's floodlit beaches are packed at night
- Is music finally reckoning with #MeToo?
- Fans hail Trump's 'guts' as he returns to site of rally shooting
- Lebanon state media says Israeli strikes hit south Beirut
- Miami on track for MLS record points after win in Toronto
- Monaco take top spot in Ligue 1 with win at Rennes
- Madrid beat Villarreal to level Liga leaders Barca
- Thuram treble fires Inter past Torino and up to second
- 'Fight': defiant Trump jets in to site of rally shooting
- Mexico City's new mayor sworn in with pledges on water, housing
- Israel on alert ahead of Hamas attack anniversary
- Guardians maul Tigers in MLB playoff series opener
- Macron criticises Israel on Gaza, Lebanon operations
- French rugby player whistled but 'serene' on return amid ongoing rape case
- Retegui hat-trick fires five-star Atalanta to hammering of Genoa
- Heavyweights Australia, England off to World Cup winning starts
- Visiting UN refugee agency chief decries 'terrible crisis' in Lebanon
- Spinners come to party as England defeat Bangladesh at T20 World Cup
- Search continues for missing in deadly Bosnia floods
- Man City sink Fulham to get title bid back on track
- France's Auradou whistled on Pau return in Perpignan loss amid ongoing rape case
- A 'forgotten' valley in storm-hit North Carolina, desperate for help
- Arsenal hit back in style after Southampton scare
- Hezbollah heir apparent Safieddine out of contact after strikes
- Liverpool stay top of Premier League as Arsenal, Man City win
- In dank Tour of Emilia, Pogacar shines in rainbow jersey
- DR Congo launches mpox vaccination drive, hoping to curb outbreak
- Trump returns to site of failed assassination
- Careless Leverkusen held to Bundesliga draw
- O'Brien's 'superstar' Kyprios posts landmark win on Arc weekend
- Liverpool suffer Alisson injury blow
- Habosi helps Racing beat Vannes before Auradou's playing return
- Thousands march in London in support of Palestinians, 1 year after Oct 7
- Israel readying response to Iran missile attack
- Schutt, Mooney help Australia beat Sri Lanka in Women's T20 World Cup
- Liverpool extend Premier League lead with win at Palace
- Djokovic 'shakes rust off' to make third round of Shanghai Masters
Rich nations, China must accelerate race to net zero: IEA
Rich and developing nations alike must sharply improve their net-zero targets, the International Energy Agency said Tuesday, warning that a clean energy surge was the main reason the world's climate goals are still within reach.
Wealthy countries must now reach carbon neutrality in around 2045, five years early, and China should speed up by a decade to 2050 to keep to the Paris goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, the IEA said.
"The world has already delayed too long to avoid hard choices," the global energy watchdog said.
The report, which comes ahead of crunch UN climate talks, updates the IEA's landmark 2021 "Net Zero Roadmap", which said new fossil fuel development was incompatible with global decarbonisation by mid-century and the 1.5C target.
Two years later the IEA has seen progress in the form of record growth in solar power capacity and electric car sales.
These are in line with the IEA's pathway to net-zero emissions, as are the plans put in place by industry to roll out new manufacturing for them.
The energy sector is "changing faster than many people think", the IEA said, adding that together these clean energy technologies are projected to deliver a third of the emissions reductions needed by 2030.
But it warned of the negative impact of increased fossil fuel investments and "stubbornly high emissions" during the same period, which saw a post-pandemic economic rebound and the energy crisis driven by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
"The pathway to 1.5C has narrowed in the past two years, but clean energy technologies are keeping it open," said IEA chief Fatih Birol.
- Fossil focus -
The IEA this month forecast that world demand for oil, gas and coal would peak this decade thanks to the "spectacular" growth of cleaner energy technologies and electric cars.
But far from resting on that success, Birol said countries need to work together to substantially speed up climate action.
Even a small delay in ramping up emissions cuts beyond the current pledges "would cause global temperature to exceed 1.5C for almost 50 years", the report warned.
It laid out a potential pathway for the energy sector -- the largest single source of greenhouse gas emissions -- to achieve net-zero emissions and contribute towards curbing warming to 1.5C.
The IEA said staying on track "means almost all countries must move forward their targeted net zero dates", with its pathway based on an "equitable" redistribution of targets, pulling forward China and richer countries to allow developing nations more breathing space to decarbonise after 2050.
The report also calls for a "huge policy-driven ramping up of clean energy capacity" driving fossil fuel demand 25 percent lower by 2030.
And it warned that if the world's current oil and gas fields and coal plants operate to the end of their lifespans, the world would significantly overshoot its CO2 budget to stay within 1.5C.
Singling out China, the IEA said the country is projected to account for 45 percent of emissions from existing fossil fuel assets between 2023 and 2050.
- 'Expensive and unproven' -
At just under 1.2C of warming so far, the world has already seen a crescendo of deadly and destructive extreme weather and the most vulnerable populations are hit hardest.
A recent UN progress report on the Paris goals warned the world was not on track to limit warming to 1.5C.
It stressed that phasing out fossil fuels whose emissions cannot be captured or compensated is necessary to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
This is likely to be at the heart of debates at the UN's COP28 climate summit in Dubai, a major oil producer, between November 30 and December 12.
"The age of fossil fuels is ending," said Laurence Tubiana, head of the European Climate Foundation.
"In Dubai, the COP presidency will have to show what post-fossil fuel leadership looks like."
The IEA threw its weight behind critics of so-called carbon removal technologies, which have been given greater prominence as the world fails to slash emissions.
These include industrial and nature-based processes to extract CO2 molecules from the atmosphere and store them permanently.
The IEA said a scenario of delayed climate action would force the world to rely on these "expensive and unproven at scale" carbon removal technologies.
If such technologies fail to deliver at the scale needed -- including effectively filtering 0.1 percent of Earth's atmosphere every year by 2100 -- the IEA said returning temperatures to 1.5C "would not be possible".
S.Caetano--PC