New Delhi: Global temperature rise is set to cross the 1.5-°C threshold, likely within the next few years, intensifying extreme weather, ecosystem loss and submersion of small island developing nations, according to a new UN report released on Wednesday.
The report, “Limiting Overshoot”, released by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) emphasised the need for immediate and sustained cuts to greenhouse gas emissions.
“Global temperature rise is set to cross 1.5°C, likely within the next few years, pushing climate risks and impacts to increasingly dangerous heights, but it is still possible to bring temperatures down and achieve global goals in the Paris Agreement,” the report said.
Above 1.5°C, risks and impacts will intensify with every extra fraction of a degree and every year. Expected impacts include intensified extreme
weather, ecosystem loss, and submersion of small island developing states, and low-lying coastal cities, it said.
It identified an “overshoot, peak, and decline” pathway as the best remaining option to minimise the magnitude and duration of the overshoot and to try to return to below 1.5°C as soon as possible.
In a statement, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said, «This summer›s scorching heat, raging wildfires and deadly floods are a warning of what lies ahead. We must make the overshoot above 1.5°C as small and short as possible. That demands an overshoot of ambition.»
There is a need to minimise peak temperature rise through immediate and sustained cuts to greenhouse gas emissions, including methane, on the road to net-zero, said the report.
Moreover, temperatures must be brought down through long-term net-negative emissions, with carefully governed carbon dioxide removal – the process of removing carbon from the air and storing it through afforestation or other means – as an essential part of the mix.
Inger Andersen, Executive Director of UNEP, said, «Now is the time we must double down on climate action. We can — and must — get on the right path. By cutting greenhouse gas emissions, strengthening resilience and adaptation, and ensuring exceedance of 1.5°C is as small and short as possible.»
