Is the 1.5°C Global Warming Limit Still Achievable?

The climate report that the IPCC released on April 4, 2022, is the third part of the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6 WGIII).  The report compiles the latest knowledge on climate change.

The AR6 comes after eight years since the IPCC published a landmark climate report from thousands of research reviewed and put together by hundreds of scientists worldwide.

The Economist podcast, “Can the 1.5°C climate target survive?” that Vijay Vaitheeswaran hosted, features The Economist’s environment editor, Catherine Brahic and briefings editor, Oliver Morton. The podcast dug deep into the conclusions of the new IPCC report and what they mean for our planet.

The trio discussed and explored some crucial questions surrounding the IPCC report.

Is there still hope to meet the Paris Agreement targets, and how the energy transition will be affected by the ongoing war in Ukraine.

For Morton, the latest IPCC report will serve as a reference manual for negotiators and governments, especially those who don’t have developed scientific advice services available to make crucial decisions in the next 5 to ten years that will affect the climate.

Brahic says that IPCC is also a political body. Each report needs to be approved by the 195 member governments so that the message that ultimately comes out is a consensus of all 195 states, which gives them a sense of ownership and is essential in terms of policymaking.  

Brahic identified critical points in the report. First, meeting the Paris Agreement of 1.5 to 2°C global warming limit is becoming increasingly difficult as time goes on and nearly impossible to achieve within the century without an overshoot. Climate models warn that emissions must peak by 2025 to meet the target just three years away. However, the emissions trend shows the opposite; emissions are rising yearly, putting us off track to peaking by 2025, says Brahic.

Brahic says that government pledges and policies are vital to reaching the Paris Agreement targets. Current guidelines also put us on a path to a 2.5°C.

According to Morton, in terms of climate mitigation, the report emphasises coordinated planning and decision-making between countries, particularly on the interference in the economy, which will be unpopular in some places.

Vijay surmises governments need to set their ambitions in the same direction, not in a “jumbled-up way” like in the past.

Unless governments hugely increase their climate ambitions between now and the next climate summit in November of this year, we won’t be achieving the 1.5°C targets.

For Morton hitting the climate target is not about governments’ climate pledges but about the actual path of decarbonisation and doing more. For him, it seems “spectacularly unlikely” that governments will do more to meet the 1.5°C targets.

Brahic notes that the report is full of socio-economic pathways that allow us to meet the targets such as emissions reduction in every sector such as energy, transport, buildings, and agriculture. But then again, she hasn’t seen that kind of ambition in terms of the scale and speeds required to meet the reduction targets.

There is a considerable reluctance on almost everyone involved, says Morton. Adding that, nothing in the report suggests that even if we peak in 2025, we can stay with a good shout of 1.5 degrees.

Vijay commented that 1.5C is slipping away and even keeping temperatures below 3C of warming requires dramatic action. He asked both Brahic and Morton if the emphasis on what to do changed in this report?

Brahic says that the emphasis on fossil fuels has become much louder and on negative emissions – the process of sucking emissions out of the air.

According to Morton, in terms of climate mitigation, the report emphasises coordinated planning and decision-making between countries, particularly on the interference in the economy, which will be unpopular in some places.

Vijay surmises governments need to set their ambitions in the same direction rather than in a “jumbled-up way” as we tended to do in the past.

Other topics explored in the podcast include:

• Negative emissions, what technology is involved in it, and how essential it is in keeping the warming to meet the Paris targets of 1.5°C to 2°C.
• The types of negative emissions technology deployment in the next decade
• How behavioural change through demand-side reductions can help meet the target
• The impact of the ongoing war in Ukraine on the energy transition – will it boost renewable energy production or fossil fuel production.
• The cost of mitigation and the cost of enacting climate policy versus the cost of inaction, and can climate models give an accurate figure on the cost of both action and inaction.

Click the link provided in the “Source” below to listen to the podcast.