Scientists warn against temperatures exceeding safe limits
World climate leaders have acknowledged that global warming will exceed a strict threshold, which was set ten years ago, with the hope that they can keep the planet out of the danger zone.
However, they have not yet given up hope that global temperatures can return below this limit.
United Nations officials and scientists have expressed optimism that temperatures can be restored to below 1.5 degrees Celsius, the target set in the Paris Agreement in 2013. 2015, which sought to limit warming to this degree compared to the pre-industrial era. Despite increasing indications that this limit may be exceeded, officials have recently begun to focus on the necessity of reducing the period of time the Earth will remain in the danger zone.
An article published by “Euronews” indicated: Until 1.5 degrees Celsius is considered a critical point, it begins to be calculated based on average temperatures over a ten-year period. Although scientists consider that exceeding this threshold is inevitable in the near future, it will not be considered a real exceedance unless temperatures continue above this limit over a period of ten years.
Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Research and one of the scientific advisors to the United Nations climate conference held in Belem, Brazil, warned that “exceeding 1.5 degrees Celsius may lead to irreversible environmental changes,” such as the disappearance of coral reefs globally, and an increase in waves Deadly heat, in addition to the danger of the drying out of the Amazon forest and the melting of the ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica. He added that exceeding this limit could lead to a complete disruption of the global ecosystem, such as the currents of the Atlantic Ocean.
Scientists’ assessment of the current situation
Commenting on the current situation, Rockström said that the scientific evidence today is clearer than that which was available ten years ago, stressing that “exceeding 1.5 degrees Celsius poses a real threat.” He explained that the world may face great environmental difficulties if it continues on this path. He added: “Exceeding this limit will increase human suffering and bring us closer to catastrophic turning points in environmental systems.”
Officials acknowledge that the threshold has been crossed, but cling to hope.
In a related context, United Nations officials recently acknowledged that global temperatures are likely to exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius in the coming years or decades. Nevertheless, this goal remains particularly important. Simon Steele, UN climate chief, said at the opening of the current conference: “The science is clear: we can and must return temperatures to 1.5 degrees Celsius after any temporary overshoot.” For his part, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stressed, in a speech in Geneva last month, that exceeding this limit has become inevitable, but this does not mean that we must surrender. He said: “Although exceeding 1.5 degrees Celsius has become inevitable in the near future, this does not mean that the goal has become impossible. We need to intensify our efforts to reduce the impact of this overshoot."
Future technologies and hopes for carbon reduction
The hope of reducing temperatures to below 1.5 degrees Celsius is linked to the development of technologies to remove carbon from the atmosphere. Scientists expect that “carbon sinks” will help… Natural resources, such as trees and oceans, absorb carbon dioxide. Scientists are also looking to develop new technologies in the future to reduce current concentrations of carbon in the atmosphere.
“Without removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, it will be impossible to successfully manage an overshoot scenario,” says Otmar Edenhofer, chief economist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Research. But scientists admit that these technologies have not yet been developed on a large scale, making the hope that temperatures will return to safe levels depend on the development of these innovations. Predictions for the near future
A recent analysis from scientists from the Climate Action Tracker initiative showed… If the world continues on its current emissions trajectory, global temperatures will exceed 1.5°C by 2030, with a peak of 1.7°C. Scientists believe that even if the world makes every effort to reduce emissions, achieving the 1.5 degree Celsius goal may become unlikely.
Bill Hare, a researcher in this initiative, pointed out that the current path does not indicate a simple temporary overstep, but rather a complete failure to achieve climate goals, with temperatures continuing to rise until the year 2100. The world has failed to maintain this goal. However, there is hope that the worst scenarios can be avoided if global commitments to combat climate change are met.
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