Countries must cut their greenhouse gas emissions well beyond current pledges in order to prevent catastrophic climate change, according to a United Nations report released on Tuesday. The annual Emissions Gap Report points out the United States and China, Russia and the European Union particularly as doing too little to tackle the climate crisis. "Emissions need to go down by 55 percent by 2030," said the report's colead author, John Christensen. "There is no way we are going to make it if we don't step up action as of next year with ambitious plans." The report states that even if all Paris commitments were implemented, temperatures would likely rise up to 3.2C this century, which would bring with destructive climate change. "Our collective failure to act early and hard on climate change means we now must deliver deep cuts to emissions, over 7 percent each year," said Inger Andersen, the UN Environment Program's executive director.

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