The United Nations’ NDC Synthesis Report released on February 26 2021 highlights the stark gap between climate ambition and implementation, the Environmental Justice Foundation says. It shows nations must redouble their efforts and submit stronger, more ambitious national climate action plans in 2021.

EJF founder and executive director Steve Trent says:

“This report shows that while governments’ existing commitments to combat climate change are a step in the right direction, they are far too little, far too late.

"We have less than a decade to save the planet. Our climate is changingnow. This is already harming many people and will harm us all if we do not act now.

"If we do act now with bold ambition, future generations will have cleaner air, abundant wildlife, and long-term environmental safety and security.

“If we don't act now climate breakdown will jeopardize the well-being and basic human rights of hundreds of millions of people, while destroying our planet’s natural environments and eliminating species.”

The impact of global heating is fundamentally unjust. Those who contributed the least to our heating planet – its poorest and most disempowered and vulnerable – are being affected first and worst, while the world’s wealthy are still able to avoid the worst consequences.

We have all the tools we need to get to net-zero carbon. The financial, technological and logistical capabilities exist, we just need the political will and leadership to use them. Governments must act now with ambition, harnessing the energy and ingenuity of business, and working in partnership with civil society, to lead the way to a more just and sustainable future for all.

Steve Trent says:

“By working together as a global community we can still avert the most damning impacts, the gravest injustices and the worst violence.

"It is fundamentally wrong to see moving to carbon neutrality as a “cost’” and it will save us US$ billions globally. But the longer we wait, the more we will have to invest, and spending now will protect us from the long-term future costs of climate breakdown.

Governments must listen to the science; it is clear and unequivocal – immediately before the UN’s report release, scientists announced that the Atlantic circulation currents are at their weakest in a millennium – the planet is changing, and fast.”