{"id":3513792,"date":"2025-06-13T10:47:49","date_gmt":"2025-06-13T10:47:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/?p=3513792"},"modified":"2025-06-13T10:47:49","modified_gmt":"2025-06-13T10:47:49","slug":"1-5-is-dead-how-hot-will-the-earth-get","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/stories\/2025-06-13\/1-5-is-dead-how-hot-will-the-earth-get\/","title":{"rendered":"1.5 is dead: How hot will the Earth get?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>2024 was the warmest year since records began being kept 175 years ago. According to the World Meteorological Organization\u2019s latest\u00a0<em>State of the Global Climate<\/em>\u00a0report:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Each of the past ten years set a new global temperature record.<\/li>\n<li>Each of the past eight years set a new record for ocean heat content.<\/li>\n<li>The 18 lowest Arctic sea-ice extents on record were all in the past 18 years.<\/li>\n<li>The three lowest Antarctic ice extents were in the past three years.<\/li>\n<li>The largest three-year loss of glacier mass on record occurred in the past three years.<\/li>\n<li>The rate of sea level rise has doubled since satellite measurements began.<sup>[1]<\/sup><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>There is no room for doubt: Earth is getting hotter. The question now is\u00a0<em>how<\/em>\u00a0<em>hot will it get?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>In 2015, at the United Nations climate conference (COP21) in Paris, 196 countries promised to \u201csignificantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change\u201d by \u201cholding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2\u00b0C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5\u00b0C above pre-industrial levels.\u201d<sup>[2]<\/sup><\/p>\n<p>A May 2024 survey asked 380 leading climate scientists whether the 1.5\u00b0C goal will be achieved.\u00a0<em>Only 6% said yes.<\/em>\u00a077% believe that global temperatures will rise more than 2.5\u00b0C by 2100, and 42% think the increase will be over 3\u00b0C.<sup>[3]<\/sup><\/p>\n<p>Future Earth, the international agency that coordinates global change research, warns that \u201covershooting 1.5\u00b0C is fast becoming inevitable.\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cDecades of insufficient action for mitigating GHG emissions have set the world on the current trajectory to overshoot the internationally agreed target of limiting global warming to 1.5\u00b0C, enshrined in the Paris Agreement. National mitigation commitments are inadequate to even stay well below 2\u00b0C of global warming, creating unacceptable risks for human societies and ecosystems, with vast yet unequally distributed costs. This is a dangerous gamble that could lead to irreversible impacts for life on Earth, including devastating loss of biodiversity and a rising risk of triggering climate tipping points.\u201d<sup>[4]<\/sup><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Under the Paris Agreement, each country decides its own targets, called National Determined Contributions. According to the UN, there is a \u201cmassive gap\u201d between the treaty\u2019s objectives and the policies actually adopted by the largest polluters.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cCollectively the NDC targets of the G20 are far from the average global percentage reductions required to align with 2\u00b0C and 1.5\u00b0C scenarios\u2026.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA continuation of the mitigation effort implied by current policies is estimated to limit global warming to a maximum of 3.1\u00b0C (range: 1.9\u20133.8) over the course of the century.\u201d<sup>[5]<\/sup><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This isn\u2019t just a matter for future concern. 2024 was the hottest year since preindustrial times, and the first full year in which the average temperature passed the 1.5\u00b0C target. Actually exceeding the Paris goal requires at least a decade, but 2024 is almost certainly an indicator of what is to come, especially if, as noted climate scientist James Hansen argues, global warming is speeding up.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cTherefore, we expect that global temperature will not fall much below +1.5\u00b0C level, instead oscillating near or above that level for the next few years, which will help confirm our interpretation of the sudden global warming. High sea surface temperatures and increasing ocean hotspots will continue, with harmful effects on coral reefs and other ocean life. The largest practical effect on humans today is increase of the frequency and severity of climate extremes. More powerful tropical storms, tornadoes, and thunderstorms, and thus more extreme floods, are driven by high sea surface temperature and a warmer atmosphere that holds more water vapor. Higher global temperature also increases the intensity of heat waves and\u2014at the times and places of dry weather\u2014high temperature increases drought intensity, including \u2018flash droughts\u2019 that develop rapidly, even in regions with adequate average rainfall.\u201d\u00a0<sup>[6]<\/sup><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>It has become common in scientific reports to assert that it\u2019s still \u201ctechnically possible\u201d to meet the Paris objectives. That\u2019s just barely true, but unlikely. The United Nations Environment Program Emissions Gap Report tells us just what needs to be done:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cSpecifically, if action in line with 2\u00b0C or 1.5\u00b0C pathways were to start in 2024, then global emissions would need to be reduced by an average of 4 and 7.5 per cent every year until 2035, respectively. If enhanced action \u2026 is delayed until 2030, then the required annual emission reductions rise to an average of 8 per cent and 15 per cent to limit warming to 2\u00b0C or 1.5\u00b0C, respectively.\u201d<sup>[7]<\/sup><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>No matter what you think of those numbers, the fact is that\u00a0<em>none of that is going to happen<\/em>. Greenhouse gas emissions are going up, not down, and not one G20 government has shown any willingness to even slow down the increase, let alone go into reverse. The United States has withdrawn from the UN climate process, and Trump has\u00a0 cancelled climate change programs. If other big emitters don\u2019t take up the slack, or just fail to carry through on their Paris Agreement commitments, 3\u00b0C will be passed, probably sooner then the climate models project.<\/p>\n<p>Andreas Malm and Wim Carton sum up where things stand today:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cPromises were, after all, just that, and most were not backed up by measures that could take them out of the realm of \u2018blah blah blah\u2019, to use Greta Thunberg\u2019s phrase. When in 2023, eight years after Paris, one scratched away at the net zero fa\u00e7ade and summated all the\u00a0<em>actual<\/em>\u00a0efforts\u2014not promises \u2014in place across the globe, the sobering result was that the world was on track for 2.7\u00b0C; or, rounding the number, 3\u00b0C, meaning a warming twice as large as that which the global South had insisted on to stay alive. And we know that the warming does not produce a linear rise in damages: 3\u00b0C would be something far worse than just a doubling of the impacts at 1.5\u00b0C. But deep into the Paris era, this is where the world was heading.\u201d<sup>[8]<\/sup><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>NOTES<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/climateandcapitalism.com\/2025\/06\/05\/1-5-is-dead-how-hot-will-the-earth-get\/#_ftnref1\" name=\"_ftn1\">[1]<\/a>\u00a0World Meteorological Organization, \u201cWMO report documents spiralling weather and climate impacts,\u201d (Press Release, March 18, 2025.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/climateandcapitalism.com\/2025\/06\/05\/1-5-is-dead-how-hot-will-the-earth-get\/#_ftnref2\" name=\"_ftn2\">[2]<\/a>\u00a0Paris Agreement, https:\/\/shorturl.at\/w0KbU<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/climateandcapitalism.com\/2025\/06\/05\/1-5-is-dead-how-hot-will-the-earth-get\/#_ftnref3\" name=\"_ftn3\">[3]<\/a>\u00a0Damian Carrington, \u201cWorld\u2019s top climate scientists expect global heating to blast past 1.5C target,\u201d\u00a0<em>The Guardian<\/em>, May 8, 2024.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/climateandcapitalism.com\/2025\/06\/05\/1-5-is-dead-how-hot-will-the-earth-get\/#_ftnref4\" name=\"_ftn4\">[4]<\/a>\u00a0Future Earth, The Earth League, WCRP. 10 New Insights in Climate Science 2023\/2024, (Stockholm, 2023)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/climateandcapitalism.com\/2025\/06\/05\/1-5-is-dead-how-hot-will-the-earth-get\/#_ftnref5\" name=\"_ftn5\">[5]<\/a>\u00a0United Nations Environment Programme, Emissions Gap Report 2024, (Nairobi, April 2025), xii, xvii.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/climateandcapitalism.com\/2025\/06\/05\/1-5-is-dead-how-hot-will-the-earth-get\/#_ftnref6\" name=\"_ftn6\">[6]<\/a>\u00a0James E. Hansen, et al., \u201cGlobal Warming Has Accelerated: Are the United Nations and the Public Well-Informed?\u201d\u00a0<em>Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development<\/em>, February 2025.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/climateandcapitalism.com\/2025\/06\/05\/1-5-is-dead-how-hot-will-the-earth-get\/#_ftnref7\" name=\"_ftn7\">[7]<\/a>\u00a0UNEP, Emissions Gap Report 2024, (Nairobi, April 2025), xv.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/climateandcapitalism.com\/2025\/06\/05\/1-5-is-dead-how-hot-will-the-earth-get\/#_ftnref8\" name=\"_ftn8\">[8]<\/a>\u00a0Andreas Malm and Wim Carton,\u00a0<em>Overshoot: How the World Surrendered to Climate Breakdown<\/em>, (Verso, 2024), 69.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There is no room for doubt: Earth is getting hotter. The question now is\u00a0how\u00a0hot will it get?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":128238,"featured_media":3513794,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[79717,79718,213530],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3513792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-environment","category-environment-featured"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3513792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/128238"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3513792"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3513792\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3513795,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3513792\/revisions\/3513795"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3513794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3513792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3513792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3513792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}