After COP27, all signs point to world blowing past the 1.5 degrees global warming limit – here’s what we can still do about it

Thu, 15 Dec 2022 04:46:56 +1100

Andrew Pam <xanni [at] glasswings.com.au>

Andrew Pam
<https://theconversation.com/after-cop27-all-signs-point-to-world-blowing-past-the-1-5-degrees-global-warming-limit-heres-what-we-can-still-do-about-it-195080>

"The world could still, theoretically, meet its goal of keeping global warming
under 1.5 degrees Celsius, a level many scientists consider a dangerous
threshold. Realistically, that’s unlikely to happen.

Part of the problem was evident at COP27, the United Nations climate conference
in Egypt.

While nations’ climate negotiators were successfully fighting to “keep 1.5
alive” as the global goal in the official agreement, reached Nov. 20, 2022,
some of their countries were negotiating new fossil fuel deals, driven in part
by the global energy crisis. Any expansion of fossil fuels – the primary driver
of climate change – makes keeping warming under 1.5 C (2.7 Fahrenheit) compared
to pre-industrial times much harder.

Attempts at the climate talks to get all countries to agree to phase out coal,
oil, natural gas and all fossil fuel subsidies failed. And countries have done
little to strengthen their commitments to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the
past year.

There have been positive moves, including advances in technology, falling
prices for renewable energy and countries committing to cut their methane
emissions.

But all signs now point toward a scenario in which the world will overshoot the
1.5 C limit, likely by a large amount. The World Meteorological Organization
estimates global temperatures have a 50-50 chance of reaching 1.5C of warming,
at least temporarily, in the next five years.

That doesn’t mean humanity can just give up."

Cheers,
       *** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net               Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/                 Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/            Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/               Manager, Serious Cybernetics

Comment via email

Home E-Mail Sponsors Index Search About Us