All or nothing to cool down

– Last-ditch efforts to hold climate change to the most ambitious target set by governments will likely require using every available technique rather than picking and choosing the most attractive ones, climate scientists said on Monday.

Dramatically reducing the use of coal, planting huge swathes of land with carbon-absorbing forest or powering most transport with electricity are no longer sufficient to bring about the swift transition needed, they said, with warming expected to pass the 1.5oC mark in as little as 12 years.

“We can make choices about how much of each option to choose, but the idea you can leave anything out is impossible,” said Jim Skea, who jointly led a major scientific report analysing the feasibility of holding global average temperature rise to 1.5oC above pre-industrial levels, the most ambitious goal of the 2015 Paris Agreement.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, requested by governments, was issued ahead of a UN conference in December in Poland that will consider how to increase country ambitions to cut emissions.

To have a chance of meeting the 1.5oC goal, emissions would have to plunge 45% by 2030 compared to 2010 levels. – Reuters

London