The 1.5C Climate Goal Is Dead. Why Is COP29 Still Talking About It?
Story by Zahra Hirji and John Ainger • 10h
(Bloomberg) -- The battle to keep global warming within 1.5 degrees Celsius has been a rallying cry for climate action for nearly a decade. Now, with the planet almost certain to blow past the target, diplomats and campaigners at the COP29 summit have found themselves awkwardly clinging to a goal that no longer makes sense.
The evidence has become harder and harder to ignore. This year will once again be the hottest on record as greenhouse gas emissions continue to soar and Earth will likely register an average reading of 1.5C above pre-industrial levels for the first time. A study released this month using a new technique for measuring the rise in temperatures suggests the world was already 1.49C hotter at the end of 2023.
“1.5C has been deader than a doornail” for a while now, said Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist at Berkeley Earth. Many of his peers agree. The United Nations has concluded that the world is on track to warm roughly 3.1C before the end of the century if nothing changes. That report was released just before representatives from nearly 200 countries gathered in Baku, Azerbaijan for the UN’s annual global climate conference, where they have been mired in bitter negotiations over how to raise money to help developing nations combat global warming.
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