London: Earth is dangerously close to breaking through a 1.5C upper limit for global warming, climate scientists have warned.
The Paris climate summit in December last year had made a decision to limit global warming to 1.5C, measured in relation to pre-industrial temperatures. Scientists and campaigners had hailed the move as a landmark decision and a major success. By setting the target, they said, desertification, heatwaves, widespread flooding and other global warming impacts could be avoided.
But just eight months after the Paris summit Met Office data prepared by meteorologist Ed Hawkins of Reading University shows that average global temperatures were already more than 1C above pre-industrial levels for every month except one over the past year and it peaked at +1.38C in February and March, the Guardian has reported. Keeping within the 1.5C limit will be extremely difficult, say scientists, given these rises.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change talks in Geneva this month will likely discuss this alarming rise and scientists will start to outline ways to implement the goals that were set in Paris, the Guardian said. Dates for abandoning all coal-burning power stations and halting the use of combustion engines across the globe — possibly within 15 years — are likely to be set.
