U.S.-China Climate Agreement Won’t Slow Warming Enough, World Bank Says

An agreement between the U.S. and China to curb greenhouse-gas emissions won’t slow global warming enough to prevent extreme weather that damages crops, World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim said.

President Barack Obama committed the U.S. to cut emissions more quickly under the deal, announced Nov. 12 in Beijing with Chinese President Xi Jinping.  For its part, China pledged for the first time to cap its emissions.

The accord won’t prevent global temperatures from rising by 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), an increase scientists expect to drive a spike in extreme weather events, Kim said.

“There’s a lot more optimism now than there was before the agreement, but there’s still a tremendous amount of work to do,” he said on a conference call.

Global emissions are growing about 2.5 percent a year, a pace that will probably cause the 2 degree threshold to be breached within 30 years, according to a World Bank report on climate change released Sunday.

That would lead to lower crop yields, an increase in extreme heatwaves, and a spike in tropical storms from rising sea levels, the World Bank said.

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