S. Rita | 06.11.2023 01:00
The opportunity to avoid a 1.5°C rise in global temperature will close before 2030 if emissions are not cut, a new study shows.
In just over five years, sometime in early 2029, the world is unlikely to be able to stay below the internationally accepted maximum temperature for global warming if it continues to burn fossil fuels at its current rate, the report wrote. euronews. This study brings us three years closer to the time when the world will finally reach this critical climate threshold.
The opportunity to avoid a 1.5°C rise in global temperature will close before 2030 if emissions are not cut, a new study shows. (Image: Canva)
The possibility of climate catastrophe is approaching
Above a temperature rise of 1.5 degrees Celsius, the risk of a catastrophe increases. The world will likely lose most of its coral reefs, a major ice sheet may melt irreversibly, and deaths from water shortages, heat waves and extreme weather will increase dramatically, according to a previous UN scientific report.
This threshold will be reached sooner than originally thought, as the world makes progress in cleaning up another type of air pollution – tiny smoke-like particles called aerosols. The aerosols cool the planet slightly and mask the effects of burning coal, oil and natural gas, the study’s lead author said.
In other words, while cleaning up aerosol pollution is a good thing, that success means temperatures will rise less quickly.
The study, published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change, calculates the amount of “carbon dioxide emissions” remaining. This is the amount of fossil fuels the world could burn to still have a 50% chance of limiting temperature rise to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, the threshold set in the 2015 Paris Agreement.
On average, the past 10 years have been 1.14°C warmer than in the 19th century. Last year was 1.26 degrees Celsius warmer, and scientists say this year is likely to exceed that.
The new study estimates the amount of carbon dioxide emissions at about 250 billion tons. The world is burning just over 40 billion tons a year (and counting), leaving enough carbon dioxide emissions to last just six years if we continue at our current rate. But those six years, according to the study, began in January 2023, so there are only five years and a few months left.
How much are carbon dioxide emissions in the world?
“This does not mean that the battle against climate change will be lost in six years,” said study lead author Robin Lambole, a climate scientist at Imperial College London. “But I think that perhaps, if we are not already on a strong downward trajectory, it will be too late to fight for a 1.5 degree limit.”
According to Lambole, the 2021 report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which presented a budget of 500 billion tons, pointed to mid-2032 as the date for setting a 1.5 degree limit.
An update by several IPCC authors last June created a carbon budget similar to that reached by the Lambool group. But Lambole’s analysis is more detailed, said co-chair of the IPCC report and climate scientist Valérie Masson-Delmotte.
The biggest change between the 2021 report and this year’s studies is that the new research shows larger reductions in aerosol emissions. These emissions come from forest fires, sea salt spray, volcanoes, and the burning of fossil fuels. This produces sooty air that cools the planet somewhat, masking the effects of larger greenhouse gases.
As the world cleans up carbon dioxide emissions, it is also reducing these cooling aerosols at the same time, Lambole said, and the study takes that into account further, as do adjustments to the computer simulations.
Above a temperature rise of 1.5 degrees Celsius, the risk of a catastrophe increases. (Image: Canva)
What happens when the world’s carbon footprint runs out?
Although the carbon cap is expected to run out in 2029, this does not mean that the world will immediately be 1.5 degrees warmer than pre-industrial levels.
The actual temperature change may happen a little earlier or even a decade or two later, but it will certainly happen after the “budget” is exhausted, Lambole said.
The authors say people should not mistake the exhaustion of the 1.5°C budget as the only time left to stop global warming. According to their study, the carbon dioxide emissions budget, which has a 50 percent chance of keeping temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius, is 1,220 billion tons, the equivalent of about 30 years.
“We don’t want this to be interpreted as saving the planet in six years,” said study co-author Christopher Smith, a climate scientist at the University of Leeds.
“If we can limit the temperature rise to 1.6, 1.65 or 1.7 degrees, that’s much better than two degrees. We still have to fight for every tenth.”
According to climate scientist Bill Hare of Climate Action Tracker, which tracks national efforts to reduce carbon emissions, “passing the 1.5 degree limit does not push the world over the edge at this point, but it represents a turning point in the increase in carbon emissions.” The risk of catastrophic change. “A point of view.”
Is it still possible to limit global warming to 1.5°C?
Ahead of the COP28 climate talks scheduled to be held next month in Dubai, world leaders still say the 1.5°C limit is within reach. According to Lambole, limiting temperature rise to 1.5 degrees is technically possible, but politically challenging and unlikely.
“We’ve reached the point where the 1.5 degree CO2 emissions window is so small that it almost loses its meaning. If your face is about to hit a wall at 100mph, it doesn’t really matter whether your nose is currently 1mm away or 2 mm from the wall… “We are still going in the wrong direction at 100 miles per hour,” said Glenn Peters, a climate scientist at the Norwegian climate research institute CICERO, who was not involved in the research.
Climate scientist Piers Forster from the University of Leeds, who was not part of the Lambool team, said people “shouldn’t worry, they should take action”. Acting as quickly as possible could “halve the rate of temperature rise this decade.”
Featured image credit: Canva
