World Must Cut Emissions By 42% by 2030 to Meet 1.5C Paris Goal

The globe is speeding to 2.5 to 2.9 degrees Celsius (4.5 to 5.2 degrees Fahrenheit) of global warming since pre-industrial times, set to blow well past the agreed-upon international climate threshold, a United Nations report calculated. To have an even money shot at keeping warming to the 1.5-degree Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) limit adopted by the 2015 Paris climate agreement, countries have to slash their emissions by 42% by the end of the decade, said the U.N. Environment Programme’s Emissions Gap report issued Monday. Carbon emissions from the burning of coal, oil and gas rose 1.2% last year, the report said. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] This year Earth got a taste of what’s to come, said the report, which sets the table for international climate talks later this month. Through the end of September, the daily global average temperature exceeded 1.5 degrees Celsius above mid-19th century levels on 86 days this year, the report said. But that increased to 127 days because nearly all of the first two weeks of November and all of October reached or exceeded 1.5 degrees, according to the European climate service Copernicus. That’s 40% of the days so far this year. Read now: What Happens When You Put a Fossil Fuel Exec in Charge of Solving Climate Change On Friday, the globe hit 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees) above pre-industrial levels for the first time in recorded history, according to Copernicus Deputy Director Samantha...
Source: TIME: Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Uncategorized climate change healthscienceclimate wire Source Type: news