According to the World Economic Forum:
The 1.5-degree Celsius threshold is considered a critical threshold, as it is the point at which the impacts of climate change are expected to become increasingly severe.
Yet for some years now it’s been obvious, although widely ignored, that there’s no realistic prospect of humanity keeping global temperatures below the Paris Agreement target of 1.5ºC above pre-industrial levels – or even below the seemingly rather easier target of ‘well below’ 2ºC. Here’s why:
The 1.5ºC target
In its 2018 Special Report (para C1) the IPCC recommended that, to achieve the Paris Agreement’s 1.5ºC target, global CO2 emissions should ‘decline by about 45% from 2010 levels by 2030’. As global emissions in 2010 were 34.0 gigatonnes (Gt), they would therefore have to come down to about 18.7 Gt by 2030 to meet the target. But, just three countries (China, the US and India) already exceed that (by 2.2 Gt) and taken together are likely to increase (or at best stabilise) their emissions over the next four years. Moreover another 194 countries, together with shipping and aviation, are the source of about 20 Gt of CO2 and, unless established trends are reversed, it’s very likely that figure will either be unchanged or will have increased by 2030. Therefore global emissions will probably be far above 18.7 Gt and, if the IPCC got it right, warming of much more than 1.5ºC target is overwhelmingly likely.
The ‘well below’ 2ºC target
The Paris Agreement’s ‘well below’ 2ºC target faces the same problem. In its 2018 Special Report (para C1) the IPCC recommended that, to limit ‘global warming to below 2°C’, global CO2 emissions should ‘decline by about 25% from 2010 levels by 2030’. Therefore, as 2010 global emissions were 34.0 Gigatonnes (Gt), they’d have to come down to about 25.5 Gt by 2030 for emissions to get ‘below’ 2ºC – say 24.5 Gt for ‘well below’ 2ºC as specified by the Paris Agreement’s Article 2.1(a). But just 7 countries (China, the USA, India, Russia, Iran, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia) already account for over 24.5 Gt and these are countries that taken together are likely to increase (or at best stabilise) their emissions over the next four years. Moreover another 190 countries, together with shipping and aviation, are the source of about 17 Gt of CO2 and, unless established trends are reversed, it’s very likely that figure will either be unchanged or will have increased by 2030. Therefore global emissions will probably be far above 24.5 Gt and, if the IPCC got it right, warming of much more than 2ºC is overwhelmingly likely.
References:
https://www.weforum.org/stories/2023/09/prevent-1-5-degrees-celsius-climate-threshold/
https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/chapter/spm
https://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/report_2025?vis=co2tot#emissions_table
The numbers are obvious, but they need to be set out clearly like this in order that people can understand exactly what we’re talking about. There is far too much obfuscation and ignoring of reality within the climate-obsessed establishment.
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On those numbers, allowing for a constant decline in annual emissions, the budget was blown by the end of 2024. Unless cumulative emissions don’t matter any more.
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Three points. Yes human emissions are beyond what alarmists say is needed:
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Second, most of the growth in human emissions is from Nations not expected to reduce them:
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Third, humans are a small contributor to atmospheric CO2, insects add more CO2 than we do, including our domestic animals, just one of many natural sources.
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