UNEP Climate Report: The World Is Heading Beyond 1.5°C

Context

Further cuts in emissions and action on adaptation are necessary, as the world is likely to exceed the 1.5°C target, according to a new UNEP assessment.

Key Highlights

• There are no scientifically viable options to keep global warming below 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, according to a recent United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) study.
• So the emphasis of global climate policy is now on reducing the size of the overshoot, as well as its duration, and also establishing a trajectory of decreasing warming.
• The development is of great importance for climate mitigation, adaptation, climate finance and sustainable development, especially for vulnerable countries.

What Does the 1.5°C Threshold Mean?

• The goal of the Paris Agreement is to ensure that the global average temperature rise remains well under 2°C above the pre-industrial level, with efforts to keep the rise to 1.5°C.
• The 1.5°C threshold is not a threshold that suddenly becomes catastrophic for impacts of climate change.
• Rather, the risks from climate change tend to escalate as the warming goes up.
• Increased temperature equals increased risks of heatwaves, extreme precipitation, flooding, droughts, wildfires, glacier melt and ecosystem damage.

Why Has the 1.5°C Target Become Difficult?

• Increase in Greenhouse Gas Emissions

  • The remaining carbon budget compatible with limiting long-term warming has been used up quickly as emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases have increased.
  • Current climate policies have the trajectory upbeat relative to previous forecasts, but insufficient to meet the most ambitious temperature target.

• Increasing Climate Impacts

  • Recent extreme weather events illustrate how an increase in temperature can exacerbate vulnerabilities to create significant social and economic losses.
  • Developing countries, especially those with a weak capacity for financial and technological resources, are especially vulnerable to climate-related disasters.

Annual Breach vs Long-Term Warming

• Even though the 1.5°C threshold has been surpassed in some years, this does not necessarily imply that the long-term temperature ceiling set by the Paris Agreement has been crossed.
• El Niño is one of the natural climate variations that can affect annual temperatures.
• As a result, scientists differentiate between short-term climate fluctuations (annual anomalies) and long-term warming trends when evaluating climate targets.
• One of the growing concerns is the likelihood of more years of annual temperature exceeding 1.5°C with continued climate warming.

The Role of Carbon Dioxide Removal

• Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) is a set of strategies that involve the removal of CO₂ from the atmosphere and long-term storage.
• CDR may prove critical in reducing the extent of climate overshoot and may help to bring back warming levels below 2°C in the future.
• However, CDR technologies have been used at a relatively small scale, and come with issues of cost, energy use, land use, permanence and environmental impacts.
• Carbon removal is consequently not a solution to the reduction of GHGs but rather a complementary solution to the fast reduction of GHGs.

Implications for India

• India is highly vulnerable to heat stress, irregular monsoons, floods, droughts, hazards associated with glaciers and sea level rise.
• Agriculture, water resources, public health and livelihoods can be particularly vulnerable to climate change effects.
• India must thus strive to go for both mitigation and adaptation, without losing sight of its development and poverty alleviation agenda.
• Infrastructure that is resilient to climate change, heat action plans, and drought-resistant agriculture, as well as water conservation and disaster preparedness, will play an increasing role.

Global Climate Governance Challenge

• The Paris Agreement and multilateral climate negotiations are not superfluous in the face of the prospect of breaking the 1.5°C limit.
• Rather, it places a greater emphasis on the need for enhanced Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), financing, technology transfer and international cooperation.
• Developed countries are in a special place to offer financial and technological assistance to developing countries in the face of their disproportionate climate impact.

Way Ahead

• Deep and permanent GHG reductions are needed in the energy, transport, industry and land-use sectors and need to be accelerated by countries.
• There is an urgent need to accelerate the scaling up of renewable energy, energy efficiency, electrification and the use of low-carbon technologies.
• The deployment of CDR should be done in a responsible manner, as an additional rather than an alternative approach to emissions reduction.
• There is a need for increased financial and institutional support for climate adaptation and disaster risk reduction.
• Vulnerable communities should be prioritized in global climate action via climate finance, technology transfer and capacity building.

Conclusion

• Don’t let the fact that the 1.5°C overshoot is now an inevitability be an excuse for inaction.
• Avoiding each degree can minimize future climate impacts, losses and human suffering.
• The main question now is how to reduce the overshoot as much as possible, how to speed up the process of emissions reductions, and how to improve adaptation to a warmer world, so that it does not become a humanitarian disaster.

Source: The Indian Express

Mains PYQ

Q. ‘Climate change’ is a global problem. How India will be affected by climate change? How Himalayan and coastal states of India will be affected by climate change? (2017)

Download as PDF