The world is coming up short on ambition to tackle an existential threat. Scientists on Monday delivered yet another sober warning that climate change is accelerating. The world’s most influential national and corporate leaders, gathered at the special United Nations climate summit in New York, responded with hundreds of pledges. Substantive, meaningful and encouraging, the promises remain unequal to the task of swerving the planet away from the path of self-harm.

Some 77 nations pledged to be carbon neutral by the mid-century, a vow to not add more heat-trapping greenhouse gases into the air than can be removed by plants and carbon-capture technology. Seventy more set themselves tougher emission targets. Singapore said it expects its carbon emissions to decline after peaking around 2030, and will be switching to cleaner energy solutions. Some of the world’s largest asset owners, in charge of more than US$2 trillion (S$2.8 trillion) in investments, said they would move to carbon-neutral portfolios. Eighty-seven big companies, with a combined market capitalisation of over US$2 trillion, pledged to cut emissions. Some 130 banks, nearly a third of the global banking sector, said they would be true to the Paris Agreement.