Sustainability Roundup – December 2018

Leaders of the Group of 20 rich countries will recognise this weekend that urgent steps must be taken to keep in reach the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, according to a draft statement seen by Reuters.  “We commit to tackle the existential challenge of climate change,” said the draft of the communique to be issued at the Rome summit, seen as a key stepping stone ahead of a broader United Nations climate summit next week in Scotland.  The leaders will say they recognise that the impacts of climate change if warming can be held at 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels are “much lower” than at 2 degrees and that “immediate action must be taken to keep 1.5 within reach.”

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The report states that of the 92.8 billion tonnes of exploited resources in 2015 (which equates to 34.4kg of raw materials per person per day, excluding water), only 8.4 billion tonnes was recycled. This equates to just 9.1% of all resources. The Dutch think-tank Circle Economy made the most of the annual meeting of world leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos to publish its first report on the circular economy, titled the Circularity Gap Report. If 21.5 billion tonnes of raw material are put into long-term stock, notably in construction, the remaining 51.9 billion tonnes are transformed into short-lived products and are assumed to be scattered in the environment. Of the 19.4 billion tonnes of materials turned into waste only 46% is recycled, according to the report, whose main objective is to develop a method and indicative references to measure the world economy’s progress towards a more circular economic model. Pressure on natural resources decreased by 28%. This waste completely goes against the environmental commitments discussed by governments and corporation at the COP21. The extraction of natural resources multiplied by twelve between 1900 and 2015 and should double once again by 2050. But a fully circular economy would decrease pressure on natural resources by 28%, the report calculated. Indeed, 67% of greenhouse gases are emitted by the exploitation of natural resources. A fully circular economy would enable us to cut these emissions by 72%, according to the report. A crucial contribution if you take into account the UN’s last Emissions Gap Report published in October, which served as a reference to the Circularity Gap Report. According to the UN report, even if all participating states of the Paris Agreement were to keep to their commitments, the global temperature would most likely rise by 3-3,2°C before 2100. Therefore the agreement’s goal of keeping the global temperature rising above 2°C would not be reached. On 22 January France’s Environment Minister Nicholas Hulot revealed that France had failed to meet its 2016 carbon emission targets by 3.6%.
Read the full article at: www.euractiv.com