Researchers predict safe global warming threshold to be breached in 6 years
climate change. This underscores the critical need to alter our course and drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the next six years, as reported by Space.com
A recent assessment of our remaining carbon budget, which signifies the allowable amount of carbon dioxide emissions to prevent global temperatures from exceeding a critical threshold, reveals that as of January, surpassing 276 gigatons (250 metric gigatons) of CO2 emissions will result in a temperature increase of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels.
The study, published in the journal Nature Climate Change on October 30, warns that if current emission rates persist, we will breach this threshold before the decade's end, as Space.com reported.
«Our finding confirms what we already know — we're not doing nearly enough to keep warming below 1.5 degrees C,» study lead author Robin Lamboll, a researcher at the Center for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London, said in a statement. «We can be ever more certain that the window for keeping warming to safe levels is rapidly closing.»
Back in 2015, the Paris Agreement saw 196 global leaders signing a legally binding treaty concerning climate change.
The primary goal of this agreement is to ensure that the global average temperature remains below a 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) increase above preindustrial levels. The agreement emphasized that restricting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius would be instrumental in averting the most severe consequences of climate change.
At the start of this year, a UN report cautioned that temperatures could intermittently surpass the perilous 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold.
