One phrase, really just a number, dominates climate talks in Glasgow, Scotland: The magic and elusive 1.5.
A U.K. science communications platform brought a four-ton iceberg from Greenland to Glasgow to urge delegates attending COP26 to take action on melting ice caps.That stands for the international goal of trying to limit future warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius since pre-industrial times. It’s a somewhat confusing number in some ways that wasn’t a major part of negotiations just seven years ago and was a political suggestion that later proved to be incredibly important scientifically.
The issue isn't about the one year when the world first averages 1.5 more than pre-industrial times. Scientists usually mean a multi-year average of over 1.5 because temperatures — while rising over the long term like on an escalator — do have small jags up and down above the long-term trend, much like taking a step up or down on the escalator.Scientists calculate carbon pollution the burning of fossil fuels can produce before 1.5 degrees is baked in.
A dozen other climate scientists told The Associated Press essentially the same thing — that if dramatic emission reductions start immediately the world can keep within 1.5 degrees. But they don’t see signs of that happening.At the insistence of small island nations who said it was a matter of survival, 1.5 was put in near the end of negotiations into the historic 2015 Paris climate agreement. It is mentioned only once in the deal’s text.
The 2 degrees was chosen because it “is the warmest temperature that you can infer that the planet has ever seen in the last million years or so,” University of East Anglia climate scientist Corinne LeQuere, who helped write the carbon budget study, said at the Glasgow climate talks. That finding that there’s a massive difference to Earth with far less damage at 1.5 is the biggest climate science finding in the last six years, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research Director Johan Rockstrom said in an interview at the Glasgow conference.
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