World now in ‘crunch time' to avoid higher levels of warming, UN scientists warn
UN scientists have warned that the world is in 'crunch time' to avoid higher levels of warming beyond the key threshold of 1.5C but that drivers of climate change are 'all moving in the wrong direction'.
In their annual report, a team of more than 60 international scientists have put together a comprehensive picture of the current state of the climate and calculated the human-driven factors behind the changes the world is experiencing.
It comes as part of efforts to provide regular updates between landmark UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports, the last of which was published in 2021 and the next of which is expected in 2028.
The group examined the amount of planet-heating carbon dioxide (CO2) the world can release into the atmosphere in the coming years while limiting warming to the UN target of 1.5C.
The report estimates that the remaining 'carbon budget' for 1.5C is emitting 130 billion tonnes of C02 from the beginning of 2025, if the world is to have a 50% chance to stay within the threshold.
However, this budget will be exhausted in little more than three years at current levels of CO2 emissions, according to the findings published on Wednesday night in the journal Earth System Science Data.
This means that without drastic cuts to emissions, the world will be unable to prevent warming from surpassing the dangerous threshold, which will lead to a rise in extreme weather events, climate-related disasters and increase the risk of triggering irreversible changes.
The report also warned the carbon budget for 1.6C or 1.7C could also be exceeded within nine years, which will significantly intensify these impacts.
The scientists' long-term estimates show current average global temperatures to be 1.24C higher than in pre-industrial times.
Professor Joeri Rogelj, research director at the Grantham Institute, said: 'Under any course of action, there is a very high chance that we will reach and even exceed 1.5C and even higher levels of warming.
'1.5C is an iconic level but we are currently already in crunch time… to avoid higher levels of warming with a decent likelihood or a prudent likelihood as well and that is true for 1.7C, but equally so for 1.8C if we want to have a high probability there.'
But Prof Rogelj added that reductions in emissions over the next decade can still 'critically change' the rate of warming and limit the magnitude and the extent by which the world exceeds 1.5C.
'It's really the difference between just cruising through 1.5C towards much higher levels of 2C or trying to limit warming somewhere in the range of 1.5,' he said.
Piers Forster, professor of Climate Physics at the University of Leeds, who has helped author IPCC reports, said the report highlights how climate policies and pace of climate action 'are not keeping up with what's needed to address the ever-growing impacts'.
'I certainly tend to be an optimistic person but if you do look at this year's annual update, things are all moving in the wrong direction,' he said.
'They're not only moving in the wrong direction, we're seeing some unprecedented changes.'
Reflecting on the IPCC reports, he said: 'What we had hope to see by this time is these emissions beginning to turn a corner and unfortunately that hasn't occurred.'
Instead emissions have increased year on year since the 2021 report, remaining at all-time highs, he said.
This year's update covers key climate system indicators such as greenhouse gas emissions and concentrations, Earth energy imbalance, human-induced climate change, remaining carbon budgets and maximum land surface temperatures.
But for the first time, the annual update also included sea-level rise and global land precipitation.
In 2024, the best estimate of observed global surface temperature rise was 1.52C, of which 1.36C can be attributed to human activity, caused by global greenhouse gas emissions, the scientists said.
The report said last year's high temperatures are 'alarmingly unexceptional' as the combination of human-driven climate change and the El Nino weather phenomenon push global heat to record levels.
While global average temperatures exceeded 1.5C for the first time, this does not mean the world has breached landmark UN agreement, which would require average global temperatures to exceed the threshold over multiple decades.
When analysing longer-term temperature change, the scientists' best estimates show that between 2015 and 2024 average global temperatures were 1.24C higher than in pre-industrial times, with 1.22C caused by human activities.
Elsewhere, the report found that human activities were found to be affecting the Earth's energy balance, with the oceans storing about 91% of the excess heat, driving detrimental changes in every component of the climate system, including sea level rise, ocean warming, ice loss, and permafrost thawing.
Between 2019 and 2024, global mean sea level also increased by around 26mm, more than doubling the long-term rate of 1.8mm per year seen since the turn of the twentieth century.
Dr Aimee Slangen, research leader at the NIOZ Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, said the rise is already having an 'outsized impact' on low-lying coastal areas, causing more damaging storm surges and coastal erosion.
'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,' she said.
IPCC's last assessment of the climate system, published in 2021, highlighted how climate change was leading to widespread adverse impacts on nature and people.
Professor Rogelj said: 'Every small increase in warming matters, leading to more frequent, more intense weather extremes.
'Emissions over the next decade will determine how soon and how fast 1.5C of warming is reached. They need to be swiftly reduced to meet the climate goals of the Paris Agreement.'
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BBC News
4 hours ago
- BBC News
Three years left to limit warming to 1.5C, top scientists warn
The Earth could be doomed to breach the symbolic 1.5C warming limit in as little as three years at current levels of carbon dioxide the stark warning from more than 60 of the world's leading climate scientists in the most up-to-date assessment of the state of global 200 countries agreed to try to limit global temperature rises to 1.5C above levels of the late 1800s in a landmark agreement in 2015, with the aim of avoiding some of the worst impacts of climate countries have continued to burn record amounts of coal, oil and gas and chop down carbon-rich forests - leaving that international goal in peril. "Things are all moving in the wrong direction," said lead author Prof Piers Forster, director of the Priestley Centre for Climate Futures at the University of Leeds."We're seeing some unprecedented changes and we're also seeing the heating of the Earth and sea-level rise accelerating as well."These changes "have been predicted for some time and we can directly place them back to the very high level of emissions", he the beginning of 2020, scientists estimated that humanity could only emit 500 billion more tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) - the most important planet-warming gas - for a 50% chance of keeping warming to by the start of 2025 this so-called "carbon budget" had shrunk to 130 billion tonnes, according to the new reduction is largely due to continued record emissions of CO2 and other planet-warming greenhouse gases like methane, but also improvements in the scientific global CO2 emissions stay at their current highs of about 40 billion tonnes a year, 130 billion tonnes gives the world roughly three years until that carbon budget is could commit the world to breaching the target set by the Paris agreement, the researchers say, though the planet would probably not pass 1.5C of human-caused warming until a few years later. Last year was the first on record when global average air temperatures were more than 1.5C above those of the late 1800s.A single 12-month period isn't considered a breach of the Paris agreement, however, with the record heat of 2024 given an extra boost by natural weather human-caused warming was by far the main reason for last year's high temperatures, reaching 1.36C above pre-industrial levels, the researchers current rate of warming is about 0.27C per decade – much faster than anything in the geological if emissions stay high, the planet is on track to reach 1.5C of warming on that metric around the year this point, long-term warming could, in theory, be brought back down by sucking large quantities of CO2 back out of the the authors urge caution on relying on these ambitious technologies serving as a get-out-of-jail card."For larger exceedance [of 1.5C], it becomes less likely that removals [of CO2] will perfectly reverse the warming caused by today's emissions," warned Joeri Rogelj, professor of climate science and policy at Imperial College London. 'Every fraction of warming' matters The study is filled with striking statistics highlighting the magnitude of the climate change that has already the most notable is the rate at which extra heat is accumulating in the Earth's climate system, known as "Earth's energy imbalance" in scientific the past decade or so, this rate of heating has been more than double that of the 1970s and 1980s and an estimated 25% higher than the late 2000s and 2010s."That's a really large number, a very worrying number" over such a short period, said Dr Matthew Palmer of the UK Met Office, and associate professor at the University of recent uptick is fundamentally due to greenhouse gas emissions, but a reduction in the cooling effect from small particles called aerosols has also played a extra energy has to go somewhere. Some goes into warming the land, raising air temperatures, and melting the world's about 90% of the excess heat is taken up by the oceans. That not only means disruption to marine life but also higher sea levels: warmer ocean waters take up more space, in addition to the extra water that melting glaciers are adding to our rate of global sea-level rise has doubled since the 1990s, raising the risks of flooding for millions of people living in coastal areas worldwide. While this all paints a bleak picture, the authors note that the rate of emissions increases appears to be slowing as clean technologies are rolled argue that "rapid and stringent" emissions cuts are more important than Paris target is based on very strong scientific evidence that the impacts of climate change would be far greater at 2C of warming than at has often been oversimplified as meaning below 1.5C of warming is "safe" and above 1.5C "dangerous".In reality, every extra bit of warming increases the severity of many weather extremes, ice melt and sea-level rise."Reductions in emissions over the next decade can critically change the rate of warming," said Prof Rogelj."Every fraction of warming that we can avoid will result in less harm and less suffering of particularly poor and vulnerable populations and less challenges for our societies to live the lives that we desire," he added. Sign up for our Future Earth newsletter to keep up with the latest climate and environment stories with the BBC's Justin Rowlatt. Outside the UK? Sign up to our international newsletter here.
The Independent
5 hours ago
- The Independent
World now in ‘crunch time' to avoid higher levels of warming, UN scientists warn
UN scientists have warned that the world is in 'crunch time' to avoid higher levels of warming beyond the key threshold of 1.5C but that drivers of climate change are 'all moving in the wrong direction'. In their annual report, a team of more than 60 international scientists have put together a comprehensive picture of the current state of the climate and calculated the human-driven factors behind the changes the world is experiencing. It comes as part of efforts to provide regular updates between landmark UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports, the last of which was published in 2021 and the next of which is expected in 2028. The group examined the amount of planet-heating carbon dioxide (CO2) the world can release into the atmosphere in the coming years while limiting warming to the UN target of 1.5C. The report estimates that the remaining 'carbon budget' for 1.5C is emitting 130 billion tonnes of C02 from the beginning of 2025, if the world is to have a 50% chance to stay within the threshold. However, this budget will be exhausted in little more than three years at current levels of CO2 emissions, according to the findings published on Wednesday night in the journal Earth System Science Data. This means that without drastic cuts to emissions, the world will be unable to prevent warming from surpassing the dangerous threshold, which will lead to a rise in extreme weather events, climate-related disasters and increase the risk of triggering irreversible changes. The report also warned the carbon budget for 1.6C or 1.7C could also be exceeded within nine years, which will significantly intensify these impacts. The scientists' long-term estimates show current average global temperatures to be 1.24C higher than in pre-industrial times. Professor Joeri Rogelj, research director at the Grantham Institute, said: 'Under any course of action, there is a very high chance that we will reach and even exceed 1.5C and even higher levels of warming. '1.5C is an iconic level but we are currently already in crunch time… to avoid higher levels of warming with a decent likelihood or a prudent likelihood as well and that is true for 1.7C, but equally so for 1.8C if we want to have a high probability there.' But Prof Rogelj added that reductions in emissions over the next decade can still 'critically change' the rate of warming and limit the magnitude and the extent by which the world exceeds 1.5C. 'It's really the difference between just cruising through 1.5C towards much higher levels of 2C or trying to limit warming somewhere in the range of 1.5,' he said. Piers Forster, professor of Climate Physics at the University of Leeds, who has helped author IPCC reports, said the report highlights how climate policies and pace of climate action 'are not keeping up with what's needed to address the ever-growing impacts'. 'I certainly tend to be an optimistic person but if you do look at this year's annual update, things are all moving in the wrong direction,' he said. 'They're not only moving in the wrong direction, we're seeing some unprecedented changes.' Reflecting on the IPCC reports, he said: 'What we had hope to see by this time is these emissions beginning to turn a corner and unfortunately that hasn't occurred.' Instead emissions have increased year on year since the 2021 report, remaining at all-time highs, he said. This year's update covers key climate system indicators such as greenhouse gas emissions and concentrations, Earth energy imbalance, human-induced climate change, remaining carbon budgets and maximum land surface temperatures. But for the first time, the annual update also included sea-level rise and global land precipitation. In 2024, the best estimate of observed global surface temperature rise was 1.52C, of which 1.36C can be attributed to human activity, caused by global greenhouse gas emissions, the scientists said. The report said last year's high temperatures are 'alarmingly unexceptional' as the combination of human-driven climate change and the El Nino weather phenomenon push global heat to record levels. While global average temperatures exceeded 1.5C for the first time, this does not mean the world has breached landmark UN agreement, which would require average global temperatures to exceed the threshold over multiple decades. When analysing longer-term temperature change, the scientists' best estimates show that between 2015 and 2024 average global temperatures were 1.24C higher than in pre-industrial times, with 1.22C caused by human activities. Elsewhere, the report found that human activities were found to be affecting the Earth's energy balance, with the oceans storing about 91% of the excess heat, driving detrimental changes in every component of the climate system, including sea level rise, ocean warming, ice loss, and permafrost thawing. Between 2019 and 2024, global mean sea level also increased by around 26mm, more than doubling the long-term rate of 1.8mm per year seen since the turn of the twentieth century. Dr Aimee Slangen, research leader at the NIOZ Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, said the rise is already having an 'outsized impact' on low-lying coastal areas, causing more damaging storm surges and coastal erosion. '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,' she said. IPCC's last assessment of the climate system, published in 2021, highlighted how climate change was leading to widespread adverse impacts on nature and people. Professor Rogelj said: 'Every small increase in warming matters, leading to more frequent, more intense weather extremes. 'Emissions over the next decade will determine how soon and how fast 1.5C of warming is reached. They need to be swiftly reduced to meet the climate goals of the Paris Agreement.'
Daily Mail
6 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Time is running out to curb climate change: Window to avoid 1.5°C of warming will close in just 3 YEARS if CO2 emissions continue at current rate, scientists warn
Time is running out to curb climate change, scientists have warned in a major new report. There are now only 130 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide left in the 'carbon budget' - the amount of carbon that can be emitted before the world hits the critical limit of 1.5°C of warming. If the world keeps producing greenhouse gases at the current rate, that will be gone in just three years. What's more, the remaining carbon budget to avoid 1.6°C or 1.7°C of warming will be burnt through in as little as nine years at current rates. The report found that 2024 experienced 'alarmingly unexceptional' high temperatures, reaching 1.52°C (2.74°F) warmer than the pre-industrial benchmark. Overall, 1.36°C (2.45°F) of that warming can be directly traced back to human activity, with the remaining 0.16°C (0.29°F) coming from natural fluctuations. A single year above 1.5°C of warming doesn't mean that the Paris Agreement has been breached, but it does show that the world is getting dangerously close to this threshold. Professor Joeri Rogelj, co-author and climate scientist at Imperial College London, says: 'The window to stay within 1.5°C is rapidly closing. Emissions over the next decade will determine how soon and how fast 1.5°C of warming is reached. ' The annual Indicators of Global Climate Change study combines the work of 60 scientists to measure 10 key indicators of climate change to give a broad picture of the planet's health. The data shows that we are rapidly approaching the warming limits set out by the Paris Climate Agreement and that the remaining 'carbon budget' is dwindling. Professor Rogelj explains that the carbon budget is worked out from the basis that 'the global warming we experience is largely determined by the total amount of carbon dioxide that is ever emitted into the atmosphere by human activities.' He adds: 'That means that if we want to keep warming from exceeding a specific level, there is a limited amount of carbon dioxide that can ever be emitted. 'The remaining carbon budget estimates how much of that amount remains when looking at where we stand today.' By looking at current warming rates and how much the planet warms per tonne of CO2 emitted, the researchers calculated that 130 billion more tonnes of CO2 will bring humanity to the 1.5°C limit set out in the Paris Agreement. At the current rate, the world releases the equivalent of around 53 billion tonnes each year. To put that into perspective, that is the same as 5.2 million Eiffel Towers of CO2 being pumped into the atmosphere every single year. What is the carbon budget? The carbon budget is an estimate of how much more CO2 can be released into the atmosphere before the world reaches a certain heating threshold. This is worked out from the basis that almost all of the world's heating is caused by CO2 added to the atmosphere. By looking at how much CO2 has been emitted and how much the planet has warmed, researchers calculate how much warming a tonne of CO2 creates. Comparing this to our current warming rates, scientists calculate how many more tonnes of CO2 would lead to a set temperature. The carbon budget for 1.5°C of warming currently stands at 130 billion tonnes from the beginning of 2025. If emissions are not rapidly reduced to more sustainable levels, there will be no way to avoid exceeding 1.5°C and triggering more severe and dangerous consequences. Even though 2024 was more than 1.5°C hotter than the pre-industrial average, that does not mean the Paris Agreement has been breached. This international treaty binds its signatories to 'pursue efforts to limit warming to 1.5°C' taken as an average over several decades. But, looking at the climate on a wider time scale shows that we are quickly approaching a time when this will be breached. The average surface temperature on Earth for the decade between 2015 and 2024 was 1.24°C (2.23°F) hotter than it was before the industrial revolution. Professor Rogelj told MailOnline that 'all' of this change is due to humans putting more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The study found that only 0.02°C (0.04°F) of warming over the last decade has any non-human causes, which Professor Rogelj calls a 'negligible' amount. By comparison, during the transition out of the last Ice Age - one of the fastest periods of natural warming in the planet's history - the warming rate was about 1.5°C (2.7°F) per thousand years. That is equivalent to just 0.02°C (0.04°F) of warming per decade, compared to 1.22°C (2.2°F) of human-caused warming per decade today. As greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, the rate of heating is increasing right up to the present day. The rate of global heating seen between 2012 and 2024 was double that seen in the 1970s and 1980s. At these rates, the researchers estimate the world will breach the Paris Agreement's limits on average warming by around 2030. This is already causing measurable changes in Earth's climate, especially in the oceans which absorb 91 per cent of the excess heat trapped by greenhouse gases. Warmer waters lead to rising sea levels, faster ice melt, and more violent storms. Dr Aimée Slangen, research leader at the NIOZ Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, says: 'Since 1900, the global mean sea level has risen by around 228 mm. '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. Most of the excess heat created by greenhouse gases is absorbed by the oceans which leads to rising sea levels and increased ice melt '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 researchers behind the report say that action needs to be taken to reduce the rate of greenhouse gas emissions to avoid more severe effects of climate change. Professor Rogelj concludes: 'How much carbon budget we have depends on the level of warming that we want to limit global warming to, and how much risk of higher warming we are willing to allow. 'Overall, however, for any temperature limit that aims to avoid dangerous levels of climate change, it essential that we stop emitting climate pollution as soon as we can. 'Every year that reductions are delayed adds to this cumulative problem.' THE PARIS AGREEMENT: A GLOBAL ACCORD TO LIMIT TEMPERATURE RISES THROUGH CARBON EMISSION REDUCTION TARGETS The Paris Agreement, which was first signed in 2015, is an international agreement to control and limit climate change. It hopes to hold the increase in the global average temperature to below 2°C (3.6°F) 'and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C (2.7°F)'. It seems the more ambitious goal of restricting global warming to 1.5°C (2.7°F) may be more important than ever, according to previous research which claims 25 per cent of the world could see a significant increase in drier conditions. The Paris Agreement on Climate Change has four main goals with regards to reducing emissions: 1) A long-term goal of keeping the increase in global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels 2) To aim to limit the increase to 1.5°C, since this would significantly reduce risks and the impacts of climate change 3) Governments agreed on the need for global emissions to peak as soon as possible, recognising that this will take longer for developing countries 4) To undertake rapid reductions thereafter in accordance with the best available science
