If we miss the Paris climate target, it will not be a global catastrophe. Some climate activists are overdoing it. However, every tenth of a degree that we reduce warming helps to mitigate the consequences. We urgently need to adapt more to climate change.
During the world climate conference in Sharm al-Sheikh in Egypt, it became clear to the general public for the first time that a magic number for climate protection is threatening to get lost. Officially, the “1.5 degree target” was still adhered to at the conference. The signatories to the Paris Climate Agreement of 2015 did not want to exceed this warming limit.
But now the voices are increasing that see a farewell to the noble climate goal coming. “The world will probably miss 1.5 degrees – why is nobody saying that?”, asked, for example, the science magazine “Scientific American” on November 11th. The temperature limit can no longer be observed wrote the magazine «The Economist» already on November 5, i.e. before the start of the World Climate Conference. It is now considered more likely that we will exceed the critical temperature level for a while.
The 1.5 degrees will soon be reached
The problem is actually obvious: since the beginning of industrialization, the average temperature on earth has risen by around 1.1 degrees Celsius. The atmosphere has been warming at an average rate of around 0.2 degrees Celsius per decade since 1980. If this development continues in the long term – and climate researchers assume this on the basis of their observations, theories and models – it is foreseeable that we will exceed the 1.5 degree mark in the next three decades.
In order to still prevent this development, the emission of greenhouse gases would have to be reduced as extremely quickly as it only happened involuntarily in 2020 during the Corona crisis. However, such a decline would not have to be sustained for just one year, but for many years. Most experts regard this as utopian. The political will for this global tour de force simply does not exist.
In fact, after the Corona crisis, which was temporarily treated as an opportunity for climate protection, emissions quickly climbed back to the original level. No trend reversal is to be expected for 2022 either: As the scientists from Global Carbon Project report, reaches the CO2-Emissions from fossil fuels expected to be record high. At best, one can speculate that emissions will not increase dramatically in the future.
Are we becoming fatalistic about the climate?
There are two concerns associated with the disclosure of the 1.5 degree target now looming. Firstly, if we exceed 1.5 degrees, are we possibly approaching a global catastrophe? Secondly, wouldn’t moving away from the climate target mean that there is less will to make serious efforts to reduce emissions?
If the earth warms up by more than 1.5 degrees, i.e. perhaps by 1.7 or 1.9 degrees, this will certainly have serious consequences: the sea level will rise more over the course of the century than it would have done if the climate target had been met ; the risk of heat waves, droughts and floods is growing faster; many ecosystems are coming under even more pressure than they already are.
Above all, however, there is an increased risk of irreversible changes. in one special report In 2018, the UN Climate Change Council made it clear that the difference between warming by 1.5 degrees and warming by 2 degrees is significant. For example, the glaciers of West Antarctica could slide inexorably if warming continued. This would potentially raise sea levels by several meters over the coming centuries.
Some climate activists exaggerate the consequences
If we miss the Paris target, no sudden global catastrophe is to be expected. Scientists don’t expect human civilization on Earth to collapse once we exceed the ominous level. There is no toggle switch labeled “1.5 degrees”. Some climate activists are exaggerating on this point. Scholars have repeatedly contradicted such apocalyptic interpretations, but they should do so more loudly.
Although the target value of 1.5 degrees has a scientific background, it is essentially a politically chosen number. In the past, it was thought to be very useful: small island states in particular campaigned for the world community to agree on the 1.5-degree mark – because of the not unjustified fear that sea levels could rise so sharply if there was greater warming that their existence would be threatened. However, the climate target was not chosen because chaos would break out beyond this mark.
Every tenth of a degree is important for climate protection
The second concern is more realistic: Revealing the 1.5-degree target could give the impression that climate change is not as serious as thought. After all, how much could the much-vaunted climate target have been worth if we then put it aside relatively easily?
But those who argue in this way are basically misleading people. Rather, it is correct: in 2015, a goal was apparently set that was already extremely ambitious at the time – in the understandable hope of sending a signal for action. However, the usefulness of fighting climate change has not changed in the past seven years. Fighting every tenth of a degree of warming is worth it even if we miss the 1.5 degree exit.
The forecasts are still unsatisfactory
At present, it appears that we may have to expect warming of around 2.8 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century. That goes from the recent “Emissions Gap Report” of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), in which the international status of climate protection is assessed every year. If countries keep to the climate policy promises they have made in recent years, warming can perhaps be limited to 2.4 degrees.
This at least shows that the extreme warming scenarios with a temperature increase of 4 degrees and more that were circulating until recently are now off the table. Nevertheless, the Unep prospects can not satisfy anyone. We are not even on a path to meet the original 2 degree climate target that had become consensus in the 1990s.
However, it will not only be crucial to avoid an excessive rise in temperature. Because that, too, is in the nature of things: Anyone fighting climate change needs to be extremely patient – staying power for decades or even centuries.
The warming must be reversed
If we exceed 1.5 degrees, it will be important to reduce emissions as quickly as possible so that the temperature falls back below the limit. The sooner this turnaround succeeds, the lower the risk that unstoppable climate impacts will set in motion: the sliding of glaciers in the Antarctic, the dying of tropical forests in Brazil.
In technical jargon, “overshooting” means the temporary violation of a temperature limit. A high-calibre scientific commission dedicated to this climate policy issue has long since been set up: the Climate Overshoot Commission.
Even if the goal of avoiding a warming of 1.5 degrees no longer looks realistic today, the magic number is likely to remain with us in the future: experience has shown that international climate policy finds it difficult to break away from the symbolic figures on which it once agreed .
The temperature mark can also serve as an incentive for us. Even if we exceed it, it makes sense to bring the temperature back below the 1.5 mark as soon as possible so that climate change does not get out of control. For us, this risk limitation is still within the realm of possibility.
Let’s let go of the illusions in climate policy
The Sharm al-Sheikh climate summit could go down in history as the event when the world community shed some of its illusions about climate change. The 1.5 degree mark was not the only illusion. The fact that, for the first time, there was serious discussion about how to compensate for the losses and damage caused by climate change, the issue of adaptation is now coming more to the fore.
Virtually no country on earth is adequately arming itself against the consequences of global warming. If we no longer deny that the temperature is likely to rise above the 1.5-degree limit, hopefully there will also be a willingness to finally initiate the necessary adjustment. South Asia and some African countries, for example, need a large number of refrigerated shelters – against the heat waves combined with high humidity that will come to these regions in the summer and could have deadly consequences. In Europe, too, there is a lot to do in terms of adaptation. The keywords are warning systems, forests and agriculture.
Saying goodbye to the 1.5 degree target will hurt. But it can be a step in the right direction: away from panic reactions towards climate change management.