New #COP26 analysis: 🚨🌡️🌍
Is COP26 on track to keep 1.5°C alive?
Here I connect the dots between findings of the most recent scientific reports and look at what current pledges mean for carbon budgets limiting warming to 1.5C
About 2400 billion tonnes of CO2 (GtCO2) have already been emitted between the years 1850 and the end of 2019 (2/n)
I then add global emissions pathways consistent with current policies, and various interpretations of country pledges (called NDCs, or nationally determined contributions) from the latest update of the @UNEP#EmissionsGap Report 2021. (3/n)
As it stands today, under the most optimistic pathway of #COP26 pledges and announcements, the carbon budget for keeping warming to 1.5°C with 50% or higher chance will be exhausted by the early 2030s.
(6/n)
What can be done?
What about increasing near-term ambition to ensure emissions are halved by 2030?
This postpones the date and is critical to keep 1.5°C alive, but action (and emissions reductions) cannot end there.
(7/n)
Only when further combined with the achievement of #NetZero CO2 emissions by 2050 can total CO2 emissions be kept to within a 1.5°C carbon budget.
Even then the likelihood that warming is kept to 1.5°C is barely about 50%. Not great, but keeping 1.5°C alive!
(8/n)
Uncertainties in past emissions, interpretations of pledges, and the size of carbon budgets do not change the core message that ambition needs to be increased to keep 1.5°C alive. (end)
With a big thank you to @RobinLamboll for helping to calculate these pathways!
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The Paris Agreement sets a global goal of "holding the increase in global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels" /3 unfccc.int/files/meetings…
With every year passing global warming progresses. 🌍🔥
@IPCC_CH reports provide the most authoritative climate assessments but only in 5-7 year intervals.
To fill this gap over 50 scientist annually update key indicators of global climate change.
Latest update out now, a🧵
In 2021, the @IPCC_CH climate report assessed the state of the climate system and the “unequivocal” role of humans in changing it.
Since then, CO2 emissions and global warming have continued and up-to-date and trustworthy climate information is more important than ever
50 international scientists are filling this gap and have now published their second annual Indicators of Global Climate Change (IGCC) report, providing updates on how human activity is impacting the climate system.
Breaking news on #CO2 📢🔥🌍
The new @gcarbonproject emissions numbers are out with an analysis by @CarbonBrief
What do the numbers tell us?
Spoiler alert: they are quite the party pooper for prospects of global peaking 🥳💩😢 (1)
Global CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and the production of cement increased yet another 1.1% since 2022, reaching their highest level yet. 36.8 billion tons of CO2 in 2023!
Total CO2 emissions that include land use increased by ca. 0.5%, a tie with the 2019 record (2)
Any positive news here?
Land-use CO2 emissions have been declining slightly, but not at a pace that would be consistent with pathways meeting the Paris Agreement 1.5C ambition.
And their estimates are still accompanied by large scientific uncertainty. (3)
The latest @IPCC_CH mitigation report shows different ways in which warming can be kept to (close to) 1.5°C.
See the light-blue range in the figure below which shows global GHG emissions. (2)
Emissions also decline for carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) individually, but to different levels. Only CO2 reaches net zero and goes net negative. (3)
Hot off the press - new climate research 🚨🌍🔥
Will warming stop once we reach net zero CO2 emissions?
Open-access publication @FrontiersIn assessing what we know and don't know about whether warming will stop once net zero CO2 emissions are reached. /1 frontiersin.org/journals/scien…
With #NetZero targets established as key components of international and national climate policy, it becomes ever more pertinent to closely understand what reaching net-zero emissions will deliver and what it doesn't. /2
That's why we, with an international team of scientists, take a deep look at the 'zero emissions commitment' or ZEC. In other words, how much warming (or cooling) can be expected once global emissions are brought down to zero.
For various reasons, we focus our effort on CO2. /3
The Advisory Board recommends the EU to take up a 2040 emissions reduction target of 90–95% compared to 1990 to keep the EU’s GHG budget to within 11 to 14 Gt CO2e between 2030 and 2050. #2040ClimateTarget#GreenhouseGasEmissionsBudget
Where do these numbers come from?
2/n
To arrive at this #2040ClimateTarget advice, the @esabcc_eu implemented its earlier recommendation to the @EU_Commission to follow an approach that is systematic, transparent and guided by EU values, when preparing its EU 2040 climate target proposal. 4/n