Hope of limiting global warming is fading

Even the most ambitious emission reduction targets will fail to achieve the international goal of limiting temperature rises, according to Thomson Reuters Point Carbon.

The organisation states that the global carbon budget will run out in 2037 if countries cannot agree on post-2020 emissions reductions at the Paris climate summit next year, dashing hopes of limiting temperature increases to 2°C.

Countries are currently negotiating 2030 reduction targets to be agreed at the international climate summit in Paris in December 2015, as part of achieving the internationally agreed goal of limiting global temperature increases to 2°C.

Each country will bring voluntary emission reduction pledges to the summit. ‘We found that even if all major emitters pledge reductions as stringent as those being proposed by Europe, global warming will almost certainly increase more than two degrees this century,’ said Frank Melum, Manager, Research Products – Point Carbon at Thomson Reuters. ‘A pathway consistent with two degrees warming requires reductions more than 50% more ambitious than what Europe is proposing, and that kind of commitment is just not on the table right now.’

Europe’s proposed climate target – a 40% reduction below 1990 levels by 2030 – is the most ambitious level of commitment currently proposed.

The Point Carbon team has created three emissions scenarios and compared them to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s carbon budget. ‘In our scenarios, the carbon budget runs out between 2037 and 2048 regardless of whether Paris is a huge success or not,’ said Melum. ‘The world just can’t escape the fact that so many emissions have already occurred.’