The Impact of Global Warming over 1.5 °C

The European Union has committed to be carbon neutral by 2050

Corina Cristea, 19.02.2024, 14:53

The European Union has committed to be carbon neutral by 2050 and has set a first intermediate target for 2030: to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 55% compared to 1990 levels. For the next reference stage – 2040 – the European Commission will aim for a net decrease of 90%. All this considering that extreme phenomena, such as floods, drought, landslides or heat waves are no longer exceptional. We feel them more and more frequently and more intensely, and they are more and more persistent. And the data shows that the past nine years have been the warmest on record since official records began. The climate emergency has been officially decreed, it is confirmed by scientists, and increasingly accepted by civil society, says university professor Mircea Duţu, president of the Ecological University of Bucharest. And he adds – now is the time when, if we act, we can fall within the limits of a sufficient adaptability, one that does not cause major consequences for the current generations, and even harm the future of humanity and the formula of life that currently exists on our planet. Here is Dr. Mircea Duţu:

“Recently, based on the conclusions of the major weather and climate institutes of the world, the World Meteorological Organization officially confirmed that 2023 was by far the hottest year ever recorded, with the average world temperature exceeding by 1.45 degrees Celsius than that of the pre-industrial period. Moreover, last year can be considered a summary of the catastrophes that await us, if we do not act firmly, consistently and immediately. The record of 2023 is expressed on several levels – the average of the related 12 months is largely superior to those of the previous record years, 2016 and 2020, which were already 1.29 degrees Celsius and 1.27 degrees Celsius higher than the average of the pre-industrial era. Every month from June to December broke absolute world temperature records and the plus 1.5 degrees Celsius bar was exceeded on average during the second semester until December’s monthly record of plus 1.78 degrees Celsius compared with the pre-industrial era.”

World leaders promised in 2015 through the Paris Agreement that they would try to limit the long-term increase in temperature to 1.5 degrees – the threshold considered crucial for avoiding a climate catastrophe. But after the record heat of 2023, the year 2024 started pessimistically: never before has a January been so warm and, for the first time, the planet exceeded the 1.5°C warming threshold for 12 consecutive months compared to the pre-industrial era. More precisely, according to data from the European Copernicus Observatory, between February 2023 and January 2024, the global surface air temperature was 1.52°C higher than in the period 1850-1900. Richard Betts, director of studies on the impact of climate change at the British National Meteorological Office said “This does not mean that we have exceeded the 1.5°C threshold set in Paris in 2015 to try to stop global warming and its consequences; for this to happen, this limit would have to be exceeded in a stable way for several decades”. However, there is a red flag. What would concretely mean for humanity to exceed this threshold of 1.5 degrees, what could be the effects? Again, Professor Mircea Duţu:

“Exceeding the threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels could trigger reaching and passing over several tipping points, i.e. irreversible state changes of the climate system, which cause effects in cascade. Such benchmarks have already been exceeded in some areas of the globe, and will occur at the planetary level if we do not stop the rise in temperatures to the levels expected in the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) assessments, and officially established by the Paris Agreement. At the level of the concrete consequences, we are talking about chain extinctions in terms of biodiversity, the exhaustion of aquifers, the accelerated melting of glaciers, unbearable heat waves and, finally, the reduction of the surfaces, of the places where you can live normally, where you cannot can still ensure food security and the manifestations of extreme weather phenomena become permanent. According to NASA, areas in Iran, Egypt, Yemen, or Saudi Arabia could become uninhabitable for human beings by 2050.”

In order to reach such a conclusion, explains Professor Mircea Duţu, both the air temperature index and that of the so-called wet thermometer were taken into account, which takes into account the fact that high humidity prevents the body from the sweating necessary to cool down, and at above 35 degrees Celsius the situation becomes fatal.