Paris Agreement targets: why 1.5°C is the key goal
The Paris Agreement contained two key points of reference for global warming: a maximum boundary of 2°C above the preindustrial levels (the benchmark set between 1850-1900), and the intention to pursue no more than +1.5°C warming.
Emerging research suggests significant differences between the outcome of 2°C warming versus 1.5°C. The high-profile 2018 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to the United Nations (UN) emphasised several stark differences that make a strong case for 1.5°C as the better outcome.
Within a half-degree temperature increase from +1.5°C to +2°C, the IPCC’s report emphasised greater drought and precipitation deficits, heavy rains, tropical cyclones, much more global land affected by flood hazards, more land at risk of ecosystem transformation, changes in ocean levels and acidity, disappearance of biotopes of plants, vertebrates and insects, a 70-90% decline in coral reefs and a 50% reduction of the yields on global staples such as maize, rice, and wheats.1
This evidence, and other research like it, has focused minds on what is truly at stake in the fight against global warming, even within what might sound like a small relative increase of +0.5°C. That’s why the EU made its objective to become the first climate-neutral continent in 2050.
The focus has shifted to 1.5°C
1 Source: IPCC Special Report 15, https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/, October 2018
Given a growing scientific consensus behind the importance of 1.5°C, it is important to assess what the current global trajectory is for global warming. What temperature scenario is implicit in current behaviour?
“In the absence of policies, global warming is expected to reach 4.1°C – 4.8°C above pre-industrial by the end of the century.” This was the conclusion of the Climate Action Tracker (CAT) initiative, which analyses government climate action against the aims of the Paris Agreement, at the end of 2019.
While current policies indicate global warming of closer to 3°C, the CAT also highlighted in December 2019 the “substantial gap” between what governments have promised to do, and what they have done to date.2
2https://climateactiontracker.org/global/temperatures/, December 2019 update
The global consensus temperature target has shifted to 1.5°C – the more ambitious of the Paris Agreement’s stipulations.
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