In 2015In Paris, the world’s countries committed themselves to do their best to limit the warming of the planet to more than 1.5 °C above its pre-industrial status quo. Even at the time the goal seemed ambitious. In recent years, it has started to seem almost impossible.
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On 17 May the World Meteorological Organization (wmo), a branch of the United Nations added in despair. It said there was a 66% chance the world would exceed the 1.5°C threshold in at least one of the next five years. This is a big jump from its estimates from a year ago, when the wmo Chances assessed at 48%. Even if the 1.5°C target is not breached wmo Thinks it is virtually certain that one of the coming five years will be the hottest year in human history. (That record now stands in 2016, which was 1.28 degrees Celsius warmer than the pre-industrial average.) “This is the first time in history that this level of global warming is within reach,” said Adam Scaife of the UK Met Office. Said, whose data and calculations are at the heart of the WMO’s report. “It shows that we are getting very, very close to the Paris border.”
Optimists say that even if the 1.5°C limit is breached in the coming half-decade, temperatures are likely to fall again, at least for a while. Technically there would be no violation of the Paris Agreement. (This would require more than 1.5 °C over many years.) The rising level of human-driven warming will be further amplified by natural, but transient, changes over the next few years.
the greatest of those variations El Nino Southern Oscillation ,ENSO), a natural cycle of warming and cooling in the waters of the eastern Pacific Ocean that has wide-ranging effects on climate. The world has seen three consecutive years of “La Niña,” the name given to the cold phase of the cycle, helping to keep global temperatures down. It now looks almost certain that a warm “El Nino” phase will begin sometime later this year, making 2024 a scorcher. (One reason for 2016’s record is that the year coincided with a particularly strong El Niño.)
But ENSO is not the only factor. Last year’s eruption of the Hanga Tonga-Hanga Ha’apai volcano near Tonga may have provided an additional temporary nudge. It was one of the largest eruptions since Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in the 1990s, and injected an estimated 146m tonnes of water vapor into the stratosphere. Water vapor, like carbon dioxide, is a greenhouse gas. Unlike carbon dioxide, it will slowly fall out of the stratosphere over the next few years. But Stuart Jenkins, a climatologist at the University of Oxford, believes that as long as it persists, it could increase the odds of exceeding 1.5°C by a few percentage points.
Some tentatively encouraging signs flashed amid the gloom. Global emissions of greenhouse gases from fossil fuels seem to have gone unidirectional for several years, leading some researchers to talk cautiously about a possible peak. Rystad Energy, a Norwegian think-tank, predicted earlier this year that global emissions of carbon dioxide from industry could peak in 2025 and then begin a slow decline.
Yet, the world’s actions still fall far short of its promises. Even the upper end of the targets agreed in Paris – to limit warming to “well below 2°C” – can only be achieved with drastic action. For example, Europe and the US would need to shut down all their fossil-fired power plants within the next three decades to meet their commitments.
And simply stopping emissions will not be enough. Somewhere between 3.5bn and 5.4bn tonnes of carbon dioxide would need to be taken out of the atmosphere each year, rising to 4.7bn to 9.8bn tonnes within 30 years. To put it mildly, this is all a big ask. But the optimist may take the view that the psychological effect of exceeding the 1.5°C target, even if only temporarily, may help focus.
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