A new emissions gap report released by the United Nations Environment Programme suggests that a decade of global climate policy under the Paris Agreement has reduced the projected maximum global warming for this century to less than 3 degrees Celsius for the first time.

The ambitious Paris Agreement “helped steer countries’ policies and public expectations,” said Bill Hare, the CEO of Climate Analytics, an international climate policy think tank. “Ten years on, domestic policies have improved, and the global emissions peak before 2030 is now in sight.”

In 2015, before the global climate pact, scientists said Earth could warm by as much as 5 degrees Celsius above the planet’s average temperature in the late 1800s. That was when oil and gas burning started turning up the global thermostat.

See Full Page