Portuguese environmental association calls for “real climate effort”

“We have missed the opportunity to avoid exceeding 1.5°C. We cannot afford to miss the opportunity to prevent a 2.8°C world. Every tenth of a degree counts,” emphasises Zero – Sustainable Earth System Association in a statement.

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) released its annual report on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions today, noting that the 1.5°C global warming threshold has already been surpassed and that, “under current policies, the world is on track for 2.8°C by 2100.”

However, Zero adds that this “does not mean giving up on the Paris Agreement”—signed in 2015 at the UN climate conference—in which nations committed to preventing global temperatures from rising more than 2°C above pre-industrial levels, with a preference for limiting the increase to 1.5°C.

“Every tenth of a degree avoided, and every year spent below that threshold, reduces risks to health, water, food production, and ecosystems,” states Zero.

Asserting that “mitigation and adaptation are inseparable,” the association argues that, regarding the former, “Portugal must accelerate the implementation of the Framework Law on Climate and the National Energy and Climate Plan, with clear targets, assigned responsibilities, defined budgets, and verifiable results.” Regarding transport—which is “responsible for about 35% of national emissions in 2024”—the association calls for “a structural shift: more rail and public transport, less reliance on private cars, and the prioritisation of the electrification of intensively used vehicle fleets and freight transport.”

It also calls for combating energy poverty and supporting an industry that is less dependent on fossil fuels.

“In the energy sector, it is essential to accelerate the deployment of well-sited renewables that are compatible with biodiversity; to strengthen grids, interconnections, storage, and demand-side management; and to evaluate phasing out fossil gas in electricity generation by 2035,” adds Zero in its statement.

At the same time, Portugal needs “to prepare for more heatwaves, droughts, rural fires, extreme precipitation, and coastal erosion,” the environmental association notes, arguing that “the 2030 National Strategy for Adaptation to Climate Change requires funding, timelines, targets, and binding integration into land-use planning.”

The “global and European priority must be the definition of a fair, scheduled, and funded roadmap for phasing out coal, oil, and fossil gas, accompanied by the rapid expansion of solar and wind energy, energy efficiency, and electrification.”

Zero recommends that the European Union strengthen climate policy implementation and support the most vulnerable countries. Furthermore, it urges the EU to bring “concrete results” to the 31st Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP31)—taking place next month in Turkey—including the fulfilment of the commitment to triple renewable energy capacity and double the rate of energy efficiency improvements by 2030.

In a message regarding the UNEP report, UN Secretary-General António Guterres states that “missing the target does not mean giving up. We can still keep the overshoot as brief and as small as possible—and bring temperatures back down to below 1.5 degrees by the end of the century.”

In recent years, the European Union has made efforts to mitigate various issues related to climate change. Despite these measures, global warming remains a reality that has affected countless ecosystems. According to the Climate Observatory, reversing global warming would require significant changes to how the world is currently managed—specifically, achieving net-negative carbon emissions globally over the coming decades. This would require an immediate end to fossil fuel use, a transition to renewable energy, and large-scale CO₂ removal from the atmosphere through both technological means and ecosystem restoration.