Global Climate Goal Rises To 1.7 C

Climate Change Summit Leaves Hope for Limiting Global Warming: Governments at COP27 didn’t make deal for sharper cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions, but analysts say 1.7 degrees is achievable; Negotiators at the COP27 conference agreed to set up a fund to compensate poorer nations worst-hit by climate change. The historic deal concluded the U.N. climate summit, while broader commitments to cut CO2 emissions remain under negotiation.

Matthew Dalton, November 28, 2022 (Wall Street Journal)

Governments left the United Nations climate summit this month with new doubts that global temperature increases can be limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius from preindustrial levels—but also with hope that a more realistic goal, 1.7 degrees, is within reach…[The earth has already warmed around 1.1 degrees since 1850] largely due to an increase in greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide and methane, caused by industrialization… [Limiting the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees requires that global greenhouse-gas emissions fall] an average 5% every year, starting now…[but] fossil-fuel carbon-dioxide emissions alone this year are on track to rise 1% from last year…

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Big economies, however, have made longer-term plans to cut emissions that analysts say could limit warming… China, by far the world’s largest emitter, and India, the third-largest, last year pledged to become net-zero emitters of greenhouse gases by 2060 and 2070, respectively…[Getting to 1.7 would] require global investment in clean energy to rise from $1.3 trillion annually to $3 trillion by 2030. Hitting 1.5 degrees would require spending $4.2 trillion by 2030—effectively doubling the investment represented by the energy sector from 2% of global annual gross domestic product to 4%...

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…[T]here is a little-known scientific reason why 1.7 degrees is a lot easier than 1.5 degrees…[Sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides from burning coal] transform into tiny droplets called aerosols that have helped cool the earth—by an estimated 0.5 degrees—by reflecting sunlight back into space…[Limiting warming to 1.7 degrees would still significantly reduce damages from] rising sea levels, drought or heat waves…” click here for more

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