As climate summit approaches, UN reports existing 1.5C warming limit is no longer achievable
A UN climate report released Wednesday finds the globe will unavoidably slip past the Paris Climate Agreement’s 1.5-degree Celsius warming target in the next few years. The task now, the report states, is to make the period of warming “overshoot” as limited as possible, eventually bringing global average temperatures back down. The annual UN Emissions … The post As climate summit approaches, UN…
The latest UN climate report, released earlier this week, indicates that the world will inevitably exceed the Paris Climate Agreement's 1.5-degree Celsius warming target in the coming years. The focus now shifts to minimizing the duration and intensity of this "overshoot" period, with the ultimate goal of returning global average temperatures back down to 1.5 C. The UN Emissions Gap report, which aims to guide decision-makers heading into the upcoming COP31 climate talks in Turkey, marks the first time that the report authors have stated that missing the 1.5-degree target is "imminent and unavoidable."
UN Environment Program Executive Director Inger Andersen emphasized the importance of finding a way back to the 1.5 C mark as soon as possible, with the briefest possible overshoot. The report introduces a new concept of emissions overshoot scenarios, which examine the impact of exceeding the 1.5 C limit, followed by a return to that level through emissions cuts and carbon removal technologies.
According to the UN, achieving the most favorable overshoot scenario would require countries to cut global greenhouse gas emissions by a staggering 69% by 2040, compared to 2025 levels. This would entail tripling renewable electricity capacity by 2035 and phasing out coal entirely by that year. However, current national pledges would only yield a 15% reduction in emissions by 2035, leading to a peak warming of around 2.8 C. Even if all existing net-zero pledges are successfully fulfilled, warming would still peak at 2.1 C.
Written by urgent.news from Egypt Independent's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
