Study: World has three years left to stay below 1.5 degrees warming
Scientists found that the carbon budget will be exhausted in a little more than three years - meaning the amount of carbon dioxide that can be emitted by humanity to permanently keep warming to 1.5 degrees,the limit set by the Paris Agreement to try and avoid the most catastrophic impacts of climate change.
The carbon budgets to limit warming to 1.6 or 1.7 degrees could be surpassed within nine years, according to the annual Indicators of Global Climate Change (IGCC) study presented at the annual UN climate talks in the western German city of Bonn.
The talks in Bonn, where the UN Climate Change Secretariat is headquartered, are seen as a critical step in shaping the global climate agenda ahead of the UN Climate Change Conference in Brazil,known as COP30, later this year.
"Both warming levels and rates of warming are unprecedented," said lead author Piers Forster. "Continued record-high emissions of greenhouse gases mean more of us are experiencing unsafe levels of climate impacts," he added.
"Climate policies and pace of climate action are not keeping up with what's needed to address the ever-growing impacts." Sea levels rise by over 20 centimetres Sea levels rose by an average of around 26 millimetres per year between 2019 and 2024, according to the study, meaning long-term sea level rise has more than doubled since the beginning of the 20th century.
"Since 1900, the global mean sea level has risen by around 228mm," said Dr Aimée Slangen, research leader at the NIOZ Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research. "This seemingly small number is having an outsized impact on low-lying coastal areas, making storm surges more damaging and causing more coastal erosion, posing a threat to humans and coastal ecosystems," she added.
"The concerning part is that we know that sea-level rise in response to climate change is relatively slow, which means that we have already locked in further increases in the coming years and decades." The study conducted by a team comprising over 60 international researchers aims to present the latest scientific findings on climate change and the human impact on the ecosystem. Is 1.5 degrees dead?
In 2015, 195 parties adopted the legally binding Paris Agreement on climate change to limit global warming to below 2 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels, ideally to 1.5 degrees. According to the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service, 2024 was the first year since measurements began that exceeded the 1.5 degree threshold on average worldwide.
However, this does not mean that the limit set out in the Paris Agreement is out of reach, since the treaty allows for temperature deviations that are averaged over a period of at least 20 years. Regardless, experts believe it will be extremely difficult to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees, estimating that greenhouse gas emissions would have to fall by at least 43% by 2030 to achieve the feat.
Large quantities of greenhouse gases would also have to be removed from the atmosphere, scientists say.
But many countries are currently back pedalling on climate protection- most notably the US under President Donald Trump, who ordered his country to exit the Paris Agreement for a second time upon taking office in January. Trump already withdrew the US from the international climate accord during his first term as president, a move that was later reversed by the Biden administration.
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