Climate: 5% chance of limiting global warming to 2°C

AFP

Monday, 31 July 2017 20:35

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Monday, 31 July 2017 20:35

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There is a 5% chance of limiting global warming to 2°C, the target set by the Paris agreement sealed by the international community in 2015, according to researchers.

The chances of achieving the goal of 1.5°C, also contained in the agreement, are only 1%, they argue in a study published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change.

A team of scientists based in the United States has used projections of population growth to estimate future production and emissions of carbon due to fossil fuel use that accompanies it.

On the basis of these data, “the increase of the temperature is probably 2°C to 4.9° C, with a median value of 3.2°C and a 5% chance that it is less than 2°C”, the researchers write.

Their calculations are not based on the worst-case scenario, with a power consumption still as intense, but include efforts to limit the use of fossil fuels, they say.

They do not provide, however, the possibility of a failover massive and sudden to renewable energies.

“Achieve the goal of global warming below 1.5°C assume that the carbon intensity declines faster than in the recent past”, note the researchers.

In the Paris agreement, the international community committed to limit global temperature rise “well below 2°C” and to “continue efforts to limit the increase to 1.5°C”, relative to the level before the industrial Revolution in order to avoid the devastating consequences of climate change (droughts, rising oceans, storms, etc.).

Experts have warned for a long time that even the goal of 2°C would be difficult to achieve.

The Ipcc, the international panel of experts whose work reference on climate change recommends a reduction of 40 to 70% of the emissions of greenhouse gases from fossil fuels by 2050 compared to their 2010 level.

The Paris agreement is less accurate, its signatories will be setting a goal that emissions should reach their peak “as soon as possible”.

According to the united Nations, the global population will climb from approximately 7.5 billion people currently to 11.2 billion by 2100, increasing the pressure on energy resources.