Early and strong emission reductions are crucial
A new report has found that, in the long term, we can limit the global temperature rise to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. While this may make it sound like we are on the right path to preventing dangerous climate change – scientists say the rise should be kept to below 2°C – the emphasis on the ‘long term’ slightly distorts the picture since long term refers to the period after the year 2100.
More importantly we should note that the report, published by the Met Office Hadley Centre, the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy, says while we can achieve a 1.5°C rise, this is highly likely to involve “temporarily overshooting the temperature goal for up to 100 years”.
Rémi Gruet, Regulatory Affairs Advisor for EWEA, explains that such an overshoot could trigger the melting of permafrost soils: “Thawing soils would release methane – a gas more than 20 times more harmful to the climate than CO2,” Gruet says.
What we need now are early and strong emission reductions, he says; an opinion backed up by the report. To avoid the temperature overshoot, emissions reductions must begin now with the technologies we have available and are proven to work.