Emission budgets and pathways to 1.5 degrees in the context of the global stocktake

Emission budgets and pathways to 1.5 degrees in the context of the global stocktake: Oxford Climate Society Side Event at COP23.

Chair:
Kya Raina Lal

Speaker:
Professor Myles Allen

Abstract:
The 2015 Paris Agreement committed the world to “pursue efforts to limit the [global average] temperature increase to 1.5 degrees C above pre-industrial levels,” but is this an achievable goal? Even if greenhouse gas emission reductions begin immediately and reach net zero in the second half of this century, what is the probability that combined past and future emissions commit us to more than 1.5 degrees C of warming already? Prof Allen co-authored a recent paper “Emission budgets and pathways consistent with limiting warming to 1.5 degrees C” (Millar et al, Nature Geoscience, DOI: 10.1038/NGEO3031, 2017) that argued that, for some reasonable definitions of both pre-industrial and global average temperature, keeping warming likely below 1.5 degrees C is still possible, but only if emissions are reduced directly to zero over about 40 years, which implies substantially more ambitious and sustained reductions than indicated by current NDCs. Professor Allen explains how (contrary to some media misreporting) this result is entirely consistent with core conclusions of the IPCC 5th Assessment Report and other more recent assessments of 1.5 degree C pathways such as the 2017 UNEP Emissions Gap Report. The Q&A addresses the implications of overshooting the 1.5 degree goal for issues such as Loss and Damage, who determines when a global temperature level has been reached, and how that should be done.

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