The less time is left before the Parties to the UN Framework Conference on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Paris Agreement are going to meet in Glasgow, the greater the pressure on governments to strengthen its goals (national determined contributions (NDC)) and conform to the most stringent scenario for combating climate change - limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, - is fell.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) most recent Assessment Report (Volume 1. Sixth Assessment Report, August 2021) clearly indicates that a warning of l.5°C will be reached by 2030 and exceeded by 2100 under all available scenarios - but the only under the most stringent and least realistic scenario will this exceedance be temporary in the 21st century.
Let us also remember a history: the IPCC scientists have never called the 1.5°C limit a threshold,'' a "tipping point" or a "catastrophic". This number as a quantitative target threshold appeared during the negotiations on the text of the Paris Agreement in December 2015. When no consensus could be reached on either the 2°C or 1.5°C goal, they simply left both figures in Article 2.1a. ("Holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1,5°C above pre-industrial levels..."). Based on the designation of this goal, the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC invited the IPCC to assess the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and the related emissions pathways that would achieve this enhanced global ambition in a separate report. Again, I emphasize that these targets and initiatives came down from politicians, but not from scientists.
The IPCC fulfilled that task and issued a separate Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C (2018), which states that "in model pathways with no or limited overshoot of 15°C. Global net anthropogenic CO2 emissions decline by about 45% from 2010 levels by 2030. Reaching net zero around 2050". Non-CO2 greenhouse gas emissions should also be "significantly reduced" by 2050 in all sectors of the economy. The IPCC report is careful to note that the 1.5°C target requires more rapid and pronounced over the next two decades than in 2°C pathways. In addition, according to scientists, all possibilities for a 1.5°C limit require the use of geo- engineering techniques, in particular large-scale carbon dioxide removal (CDR) from the atmosphere. Solar radiation modification (SRM) methods were not included in the pathways analyzed by the IPCC, but the number of scientific publications clearly indicate this method can give humanity the opportunity to meet the temperature goals set and to give the time needed for a smooth transfer of the economy towards low-carbon development.
What is happening now on the international stage? More than 120 countries have pledged to achieve "carbon neutrality" by 2050 or 2060. However, this is not about achieving net zero on emissions and absorption of carbon dioxide, which the IPCC scientists indicated, but about the full balance of anthropogenic emissions of all greenhouse gases with a CO2 sink. That task was not set in the text of the Paris Agreement (Article 4.1 of the Paris Agreement "... to achieve a balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases in the second half of this century , on the basis of equity, and in the context of sustainable development and efforts to eradicate poverty ") - which specifies a period between 2051 and 2100 - neither by the IPCC report, which refers only to CO2. Thus, the numerous goals set now by countries have no scientific basis. They are simply political statements. IPCC has found unrealistic the fulfillment of such scenarios and has not included those in the consideration of future emission pathways. Of course, current politicians will not be responsible for the failure of these slated pledges in 2050. It is convenient.
But the 1.5°C scenario also requires rapid and very drastic action in all countries until 2030 during the remaining 9 years: the time that coincides with the severe and ongoing economic consequences of the pandemic. It is almost impossible to achieve a global 45% reduction in CO2 emissions from 2010 levels by 2030. Given the continued growth of greenhouse gas emissions in 2021 and their planned growth until the end of the decade. While a number of developed countries are able to stabilize and reduce emissions (e.g. Russia has a large potential to reduce emissions), the growing trend of emissions in developing countries is still difficult to reverse without damaging their economics. 1 am certain that this very task - getting past the peak of global greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 - should be the focus of the negotiations in Glasgow.
Those delegations who insist exclusively on 1,5°C are, of course, playing their political games the failure of this goal is clear to scientists now, and in fact this threshold will be exceeded within the next 4-6 years. In this case, the current politicians will be responsible for "losing the fight against climate change." and it will be possible to name those responsible Of course, these are excellent and well-thought-out political games and we wouldn’t care about them, but I’m sure they will have disastrous consequences for the global and systematic fight against the climate change. The inevitable political scandal after the apparent collapse of the 1.5°C goal could result in some countries withdrawing from the global climate agreement, weakening the next NDC goals of other countries, and undermining the economic sovereignty of another. What does all this have to do with the Sustainable Development Goals and collective action on climate change
Let me also remind you that some of those delegations who are now actively pushing everyone to the 1.5°C low-realistic goals also actively behaved at the Copenhagen talks by promising $ 100 billion in financial aid to developing countries by 2020 - which has not been delivered. And actively behaved in Paris as well, then publicly withdrew from that Agreement and slowed global action on climate change at the international stage for several years.
Thus, unrealistic goals and targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions without scientific justification are more dangerous and harmful to the global fight against climate change than truly ambitious but achievable goals of countries. Implementing the Paris Agreement requires a public understanding that the 1.5°C threshold will inevitably be reached and temporarily exceeded in the 21st century. This understanding will provide an opportunity to use the time in Glasgow to agree on and take adequate measures to prepare for this scenario: increasing adaptation measures and financial flows for developing countries, agreeing on the possibility of using solar radiation modification methods as safely as possible to control the rise in surface temperature and consciously expand the scope of science-based (including economic-based) mitigation measures.
Anna Romanovskaya and Eugeniy Biryukov
