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Why in the News?

Over nine years ago, the world promised to cut emissions significantly, but it hasn’t succeeded. As a result, the goal of keeping global warming below 1.5 degrees is now out of reach.

Is the 1.5°C Target Still Achievable?

• Rising Emissions: Global emissions are still increasing, with 2023 seeing record levels. Despite clean energy advancements, emissions reductions have been insufficient to meet the pace required for the 1.5°C target.
• Potential for Emission Peaking: The UNEP Emissions Gap Report suggests that emissions could peak by 2023 or 2024 if significant additional measures are taken, but global actions remain inconsistent and often insufficient.
• Need for Accelerated Action: For the 1.5°C goal, global emissions need to drop by at least 43% by 2030 from 2019 levels.
  • Current projections indicate only a 2.6% reduction by 2030, far short of the required cuts.
• Technological and Financial Challenges: Achieving the 1.5°C target hinges on rapid technological deployment, energy transition, and substantial financing for climate action. However, these remain constrained by a lack of coordination and resources.

Implications of Exceeding the 1.5°C Limit

• Increased Frequency of Extreme Events: Exceeding 1.5°C would lead to more frequent and severe extreme weather events, such as heatwaves, droughts, wildfires, and intense storms.
• Impacts on Ecosystems and Biodiversity: Many species and ecosystems are sensitive to small temperature changes; coral reefs, for instance, face near-total collapse beyond 1.5°C warming.
• Threats to Human Health and Livelihoods: Exceeding 1.5°C could lead to more heat-related illnesses, loss of productivity, water scarcity, and risks to food security, disproportionately affecting vulnerable populations.
• Feedback Loops: Warming beyond 1.5°C may activate feedback loops (e.g., Arctic ice melt, permafrost thawing), which could lead to irreversible changes and make further warming difficult to control.

Should We Reconsider the Focus on the 1.5°C Target?

• Adaptation vs. Mitigation: Given the increasing difficulty of limiting warming to 1.5°C, some argue for a shift in focus towards adaptation strategies to manage the unavoidable impacts of higher temperatures.
• Realigning Expectations: While the 1.5°C target was critical to rally global climate action, a shift towards realistic, achievable goals may better support gradual but sustained progress, especially if mitigation pathways fall short.
• Moving Towards a ‘Just Transition’: With a likely overshoot of the 1.5°C target, there is a greater need to ensure that climate adaptation and resilience measures do not disproportionately burden low-income countries and communities.
• Science-Based Overshoot Scenarios: The IPCC and other scientific bodies continue to assess overshoot scenarios (e.g., temporarily exceeding 1.5°C and then returning below it later) to guide global climate strategies. However, returning to a lower temperature after an overshoot requires substantial and sustained negative emissions, which are currently unfeasible at scale.

Way forward: 

• Prioritize Scalable Emissions Reductions and Resilient Adaptation: Accelerate global transition to renewable energy, improve energy efficiency, and reduce methane and other non-CO₂ emissions. Simultaneously, invest in adaptation measures to help vulnerable communities manage the impacts of warming beyond 1.5°C.
• Strengthen Climate Finance and International Cooperation: Mobilize substantial climate funding for developing nations to support both mitigation and adaptation efforts. Enhance cross-border technology sharing and policy alignment to enable collective, equitable climate action.

Mains PYQ:

Q ‘Climate change’ is a global problem. How India will be affected by climate change? How Himalayan and coastal states of India will be affected by climate change? (UPSC IAS/2017)