The world will see the first complete year at 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels in the next decade, news agency AFP reports, quoting a United Nations (UN) report. The first full year when the temperature will be 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels could come any time between 2030 and 2035.
If efforts to mitigate climate change, including reductions in carbon emissions, do not continue at the appropriate pace, the goal of the Paris Agreement may not be achieved.
The aim of the Paris Agreement, adopted on December 12, 2015, at the 21st UN Climate Change Conference (COP21) in Paris, France is to hold “the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels” and pursue efforts “to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels,” the UN says on its website.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres said rich nations must achieve net-zero carbon quicker, by 2040, to ‘defuse’ the climate ‘time bomb’, AFP reports. This means that the wealthy countries must reduce their carbon emissions and cut greenhouse gas emissions to as close to zero as possible, else climate change will have devastating effects that cannot be reversed. The remaining emissions must be re-absorbed from the atmosphere, by forests and the ocean, for instance, according to the UN.
The UN report also states that the benefits of capping global warming at two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels exceed costs. This means that no matter how expensive the mitigation efforts will be, the benefits the world will receive as a result of achieving the goal of the Paris Agreement will overlay the costs.
The world has seen record-breaking temperatures in the last eight years. However, global temperatures will rise to such an extent, that the record-breaking temperatures of the last eight years will figure among the coolest temperatures within three or four decades, according to the UN report.