"Tiny" Remaining Carbon Budget Needed To Hold At 1.5C Will Be Gone By 2029
The carbon budget remaining to limit the climate crisis to 1.5C of global heating is now “tiny”, according to an analysis, sending a “dire” message about the adequacy of climate action. The carbon budget is the maximum amount of carbon emissions that can be released while restricting global temperature rise to the limits of the Paris agreement. The new figure is half the size of the budget estimated in 2020 and would be exhausted in six years at current levels of emissions. Temperature records have been obliterated in 2023, with extreme weather supercharged by global heating hitting lives and livelihoods across the world. At the imminent UN Cop28 climate summit in the United Arab Emirates there are likely to be disputes over calls for a phaseout of fossil fuels.
The analysis found the carbon budget remaining for a 50% chance of keeping global temperature rise below 1.5C is about 250bn tonnes. Global emissions are expected to reach a record high this year of about 40bn tonnes. To retain the 50% chance of a 1.5C limit, emissions would have to plunge to net zero by 2034, far faster than even the most radical scenarios. The current UN ambition is to cut emissions by half by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050, although existing policies are far from delivering this ambition. If it was achieved, however, it would mean only about a 40% chance of staying below 1.5C, the scientists said, so breaking the limit would be more likely than not.
But, they warned, every 10th of a degree of extra heat caused more human suffering and therefore keeping as close as possible to 1.5C was crucial.
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Ben Sanderson, at the Centre for International Climate and Environmental Research in Norway, and not part of the study, said the remaining budget for 1.5C was tiny. “The [analysis] makes for uncomfortable reading for policymakers. The budget is consistent with net zero CO2 emissions being achieved in 2034. This is vastly more ambitious than current implemented global climate policies.” Dr Gabriel Abrahão, at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, said: “There is a very real possibility that we will overshoot the 1.5C target in this decade. Thus, the public debate and the international climate negotiations should already be discussing how to return to 1.5C after an overshoot, so that [it] doesn’t end up being permanent.”
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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/oct/30/climate-crisis-carbon-emissions-budget
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