The year 2024 was when the world all but gave up on its effort to restrict global warming within 1.5 degree Celsius from the pre-industrial average, one of the key goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change. Ironically, 2024 is also set to emerge as the year when the annual average global temperature breached the 1.5 degree Celsius threshold for the first time.There is nothing sacrosanct about the 1.5 degree threshold. The devastating impacts of climate change have already begun to play out at much lower levels of warming. When the world had agreed on the 1.5 degree target in the Paris Agreement, as something worth pursuing in addition to the main 2 degree goal, it was under the impression there was sufficient time on hand. After all, the temperature rise had not hit the 1 degree mark at that time. However, the planet has warmed at a much faster rate after that, and the absence of any meaningful climate action during this time has meant that the 1.5 degree target is well beyond reach now.The writing on the wall has been evident for quite some time. However, people are still being fed the narrative that a narrow window of opportunity exists to prevent the temperature rise in excess of 1.5 degree Celsius from becoming a norm. The numbers just do not stack up.Read | Looking at 2025, Politics: Landscape of rifts and challengesIn its most recent report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) — the UN-affiliated body that advances scientific knowledge about climate change — said the world needed to cut its annual greenhouse gas emissions by at least 43 per cent from 2019 levels by 2030 to keep alive hopes of achieving the 1.5 degree goal. But current climate actions, which every country says is their best effort, are projected to deliver barely a 2 per cent reduction in the best-case scenario by that time. There is no way this large emission gap can be bridged in the short period remaining before the 2030 deadline.In many ways, the COP29 climate meeting in Baku, Azerbaijan, this year was the last hope for the 1.5 degree goal. It was supposed to deliver an agreement to sharply increase the money flowing into climate actions. The assessed requirement was in the range of trillions of dollars per year. However, the developed countries, whose job it is to raise financial resources for climate action, said they could commit to no more than $300 billion a year and that too only from 2035.Sub-optimal outcomes are not new to COP meetings but this one in Baku was particularly disappointing. Although a provision for larger sums of money would not have immediately filled up the huge emissions reduction gap, it would have done two other things. It would have demonstrated the collective capability to step up effort when faced with an emergency, and it would have provided the much-required cash for developing countries to implement adaptation projects that could save lives.Record warmingAdaptation will be critical since developed countries
Gio. Dic 26th, 2024
