18 August 2016, Reuters, Scientists to probe ways of meeting tough global warming goal. Scientists on Thursday set the outlines of a report on how to restrict global warming to a limit agreed last year by world leaders – even though the temperature threshold is at risk of being breached already. The U.N.-led study, due to be published in 2018 as a guide for governments, will look into ways of cutting greenhouse gas emissions to cap the rise at 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels. It will examine impacts of a 1.5C rise on vulnerable parts of the world including Greenland’s ice sheet and coral reefs. Thelma Krug, a Brazilian scientist who led the four-day meeting in Geneva, said it will also cast the fight against climate change as part of a wider struggle to end poverty and ensure sustainable growth. “Rapid changes are needed for (no rise above) 1.5C,” she told Reuters.World leaders agreed to work towards that target at a meeting in Paris in December, also requesting the report as part of a global agreement to phase out greenhouse gas emissions, mainly from burning fossil fuels, in the second half the century. The global rise reached 1.3C in the first half of 2016, which is almost certain to be the warmest year since records began in the 19th century, beating 2015. Some studies indicate emissions could breach levels consistent with 1.5C within about five years. Many show temperatures overshooting that limit and then being reduced later by extracting greenhouse gases from the atmosphere with yet-to-be developed technology. “It will be difficult, but there are also opportunities,” said Sabine Fuss, a delegate at the Geneva meeting from the Mercator Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change. Costly action now could help avert even more expensive damage from floods, heat waves, extinctions and rising ocean levels, she said. Read More here
Tag Archives: UNFCCC
11 August 2016, NationTalk, IPCC meetings in Geneva, The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is holding two meetings this month in Geneva to advance work on its forthcoming reports. From 15 to 18 August 2016, around 85 experts joined by members of the IPCC Bureau will take part in the scoping meeting for the Special Report on the Impacts of Global Warming of 1.5°C above Pre-Industrial Levels and Related Global Greenhouse Gas Emission Pathways in the Context of Strengthening the Global Response to the Threat of Climate Change, Sustainable Development and Efforts to Eradicate Poverty (SR1.5). The IPCC was invited to prepare this Special Report by the 21st Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP21) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Paris in December 2015. The Conference reached an agreement to limit the increase in global average temperature to well below 2 ºC above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 ºC. The report will be delivered in 2018, in time for a “facilitative dialogue” that will take place that year to take stock of progress under the Paris Agreement. The Special Report is being developed under the joint scientific leadership of all three IPCC Working Groups. Read More here
7 August 2016, The Guardian, Scientists warn world will miss key climate target. Grim backdrop to vital global emissions talks as new analysis shows 1.5C limit on warming is close to being broken. Leading climate scientists have warned that the Earth is perilously close to breaking through a 1.5C upper limit for global warming, only eight months after the target was set. The decision to try to limit warming to 1.5C, measured in relation to pre-industrial temperatures, was the headline outcome of the Paris climate negotiations last December. The talks were hailed as a major success by scientists and campaigners, who claimed that, by setting the target, desertification, heatwaves, widespread flooding and other global warming impacts could be avoided. However, figures – based on Met Office data – prepared by meteorologist Ed Hawkins of Reading University show that average global temperatures were already more than 1C above pre-industrial levels for every month except one over the past year and peaked at +1.38C in February and March. Keeping within the 1.5C limit will be extremely difficult, say scientists, given these rises. These alarming figures will form the backdrop to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change talks in Geneva this month, when scientists will start to outline ways to implement the climate goals set in Paris. Dates for abandoning all coal-burning power stations and halting the use of combustion engines across the globe – possibly within 15 years – are likely to be set. Read More here
17 June 2016, The Guardian, What would a global warming increase of 1.5C be like? How ambitious is the world? The Paris climate conference last December astounded many by pledging not just to keep warming “well below two degrees celsius,” but also to “pursue efforts” to limit warming to 1.5C. That raised a hugely important question: What’s the difference between a two-degree world and a 1.5-degree world? Given we are already at one degree above pre-industrial levels, halting at 1.5C would look to be at least twice as hard as the two-degree option.So would it be worth it? And is it even remotely achievable? In Paris, delegates called on the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to report on the implications of a 1.5C target. They want the job done by 2018, in time to inform renewed talks on toughening emissions targets beyond those agreed upon in Paris. But the truth is that scientists are only now getting out of the blocks to address what a 1.5C world would look like, because until recently it sounded like a political and technological impossibility. As a commentary published online in Nature Climate Change last week warned, there is “a paucity of scientific analysis” about the consequences of pursuing a 1.5C target. To remedy this, the paper’s researchers, led by Daniel Mitchell and others at Oxford University, called for a dedicated program of research to help inform what they described as “arguably one of the most momentous [decisions] to be made in the coming decade.” And they are on the case, with their own dedicated website and a major conference planned at Oxford in the fall. So what is at stake? There are two issues to address. First, what would be gained by going the extra mile for 1.5? And second, what would it take to deliver? Read More here