MELBOURNE (dpa-AFX) – With its previous commitments in the fight against the climate crisis, there is a certain probability that the international community could stay just below the symbolic 2-degree mark – if the promises were kept. This is what an international research group writes based on calculations in the journal “Nature”. All promised reductions in greenhouse gas emissions would have to be implemented on schedule, both in terms of scope and timing. There are, however, considerable doubts about this among experts.
The team led by Malte Meinshausen from the Australian University of Melbourne included all the goals and commitments made by states at the 2021 UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow in their analyses. The researchers calculated what effects the announced reduction in greenhouse gases will have on the global average temperature. They come to the conclusion that there is a 48 to 58 percent probability that the existing reduction commitments will be sufficient to avoid warming of more than two degrees.
The Paris climate agreement passed in 2015 aims to keep global warming not just close to, but “well below” two degrees Celsius compared to the pre-industrial age./fm/DP/jha