Key 1.5°C warming mark likely within 5yrs

NEW DELHI: There is a 40% chance that the annual average global temperature will be 1.5 degrees Celsius higher than preindustrial levels – a ceiling scientists have warned needs to be avoided to prevent devastating impacts of the climate crisis – in the next five years, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said in a report on Thursday.

The figure is significant because most global leaders committed to taking actions that would limit global warming to 1.5°C and well below 2°C by the end of the century while signing the Paris Agreement in 2015.

The findings of the report prompted Petteri Taalas, the WMO secretary general, to warn that the world was getting “measurably and inexorably” closer to the dangerous threshold. He underlined it was another wake-up call that the world needed to fast-track commitments to slash greenhouse gas emissions and achieve carbon neutrality.

The 2015 Paris Climate Accord set the long-term 1.5°C warming threshold. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), two years later, warned that a breach of the threshold will mark a menacing milestone in the planet’s warming. A 2018 IPCC report said limiting global warming below 1.5°C would require “rapid and farreaching” transitions in all sectors. The global net humancaused carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions need to fall by about 45% from 2010 levels by 2030, reaching net zero around 2050, to avoid the ceiling. The Paris accord seeks to limit global warming to well below 2, preferably to 1.5°C, compared to pre-industrial levels.

Every year from 2021 through 2025 is likely to be at least 1°C warmer, according to the study. The year 2016 has so far been the warmest. From 2021-2025, high latitude regions and the Sahel, the transition in Africa between the Sahara and the Sudanian savanna, are likely to be wetter.