By Asitha Jayawardena

By 2025, there is a chance of 40% that global temperature reaching 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.

40% chance that 1.5C in 2025?

The 2015 Paris Agreement set the rises of global temperature under a threshold of 1.5C to keep the worst effects of global warming at bay. The rise of global temperature is 2C the maximum, according to the Paris Accord.

However, 2030 or 2050 is a long way to achieve with the rise of global temperature 1.5C or 2C. So, 2025 is too soon; isn’t it?

“Increasing temperatures mean more melting ice, higher sea levels, more heatwaves and other extreme weather, and greater impacts on food security, health, the environment and sustainable development,” says Professor Petteri Taalas, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Secretary-General.  

“This study shows – with a high level of scientific skill – that we are getting measurably and inexorably closer to the lower target of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change,” he goes on. “It is yet another wake-up call that the world needs to fast-track commitments to slash greenhouse gas emissions and achieve carbon neutrality.”

To maintain the rise of global temperature to 1.5C requires immense cuts to carbon emissions to a half in 2030 and then to reach the net-zero in 2050, which many have already planned.

2.4C by 2100?

What would mean after 2050?

Promised outlook is that the rise of global temperature would be 2.4C by 2100, according to the Climate Action Tracker group.

New targets would mean that the global temperature rise would be lower in 0.2C and this is a small improvement. Currently, the biggest contributors to warming are the US, EU countries, China and Japan.

According to the current national policies, warming is 2.9C, twice the 1.5C that the Paris Climate Accord in 2015, signed and agreed by over 196 countries.

“The wave towards net-zero greenhouse gas emissions is unstoppable. The long-term intentions are good,” says Niklas Höhne of New Climate Institute. “But only if all governments flip into emergency mode and propose and implement more short-term action, global emissions can still be halved in the next 10 years as required by the Paris Agreement.”

The statement is crystal clear. Firstly, only if all governments happen to be in the emergency mode; secondly, propose and implement more short-term action, then only will global emissions be cut in half in the next 10 years.

Short-term action is needed more

We go into 2030 and then only we have to look at 2050. So short-term action is needed here.

Without the short-term action, if the global temperature reaches 1.5C above pre-industrial levels in 2025, we have to do it the hard way. How hard it is, nobody knows.

More…

Climate forecast: 40% chance world will hit 1.5C threshold in next five years https://news.sky.com/story/climate-forecast-40-chance-world-will-hit-1-5c-threshold-in-next-five-years-12317958

Climate change: Promises will mean rise of 2.4C – study https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-56984691