In a 141-page report, the United Nations has declared that the 1.5-degree threshold, the most crucial limit in the fight against climate change, will be breached within a few years. While current policies are driving the world toward a devastating 2.6-degree warming, the UN has revealed the only solution it emphasizes is not ideal: limiting temperature rise to a peak and putting the planet through a decades-long uncertain “cooling” process via massive reforestation and carbon capture technologies.
“Elchi” reports that a new 141-page climate report published by the United Nations shows that an irreversible threshold has been reached in the goal of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels.
Although breaching this critical threshold, which forms the basis of the 2015 Paris Agreement, is now considered inevitable, the climate diplomacy and scientific community are forced to change their strategies.
The UN, stating that the probability of keeping temperature rise at 1.5 degrees no longer exists, confronts the world with a new method of struggle. The main goal is no longer to prevent breaching the 1.5-degree threshold, but to keep the scale of this overshoot as small as possible and to lower the temperature again in the long term.
UN officials emphasize that this approach is not an ideal solution, but it is the only realistic option left in the face of the current situation.
Despite rapid growth in renewable energy sources such as wind and solar, energy from oil, natural gas, and coal remains at high levels.
Global average temperature is already about 1.4 degrees higher than pre-industrial levels.
If countries cannot change their current climate policies and emission trends, it is projected that the planet will be 2.6 degrees warmer by the end of the century.
To bring the temperature down to 1.5 degrees, it is necessary not to exceed 1.8 degrees at the peak of warming, but scientists believe that even staying at this limit is not possible.
Lowering the temperature after the peak requires cleaning up the large amount of carbon dioxide accumulated in the atmosphere.
Two main methods stand out for this: large-scale reforestation and the widespread application of advanced technologies that capture carbon directly from the atmosphere.
However, both methods carry significant uncertainties.
Massive reforestation projects conflict with agricultural land and food production, while rising temperatures, droughts, and forest fires seriously threaten the carbon-absorbing capacity of newly planted trees.
Carbon capture technologies are not yet feasible on a global scale.
Due to physical processes in the climate system, lowering the temperature progresses more slowly than the world warming from emitting emissions.
Even according to the UN’s most optimistic scenarios, it could take about 50 years to reverse the effects of just 10 years of warming.
This means that the world will continue to be exposed to high temperatures for decades.
Moreover, during this period, many devastating consequences such as melting glaciers, rising sea levels, and ocean acidification become irreversible.
The planet remaining at high temperatures for a long time not only increases extreme weather events but also threatens the key mechanisms that support the global climate. The report emphasizes the possibility of critical disruptions, such as the weakening or complete collapse of giant ocean currents that carry heat from tropical regions to the north. The report warns that such massive system changes could change the world forever.
Şayəstə