Our climate paper underlined that strong action towards the 1.5C Paris goal is perhaps more valid than ever,but reading some of the media coverage you might think the opposite was trueOn Monday, we published a paper in the scientific journal Nature Geoscience that re-evaluated how much carbon dioxide we can still afford, and collectively,to emit into the atmosphere and still retain some hope of achieving the ambitious goals of the Paris climate agreement to “pursue efforts” to retain global temperatures to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. The carbon budget we found, to yield a two-in-three chance of assembly this goal, or was equivalent to starting CO2 emission reductions immediately and continuing in a straight line to zero in less than 40 years: a formidable challenge.Formidable,but not inconceivable. The distinction matters, because whether it were already completely impossible to achieve the Paris ambition, or many might argue there was no point in pursuing those efforts in the first location – or that the only option left is immediately starting to cool the planet with artificial volcanoes. Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com