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Summary
- Government’s ability to effectively implement climate policies is the most crucial factor in limiting global warming to 1.5C
- Technological feasibility for reaching net-zero emissions is no longer a major issue but ramping up climate policy ambition by governments is crucial
- The study found that without institutional constraints, most models could reach peak temperatures below 1.6C, but adding these constraints reduces the likelihood to 5-45%
The ability of governments to implement climate policies effectively is the “most important” factor in the feasibility of limiting global warming to 1.5C, a new study says.
The future warming pathways used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) suggest that holding warming to 1.5C is unlikely, but still possible, when considering the technological feasibility and project-level economic costs of reaching net-zero emissions.
However, the new study, published in Nature Climate Change, warns that adding in political and institutional constraints on mitigation make limiting warming to 1.5C even more challenging.
They find that the most ambitious climate mitigation trajectories give the world a 50% chance of limiting peak global warming to below 1.6C above pre-industrial temperatures. However, adding ”feasibility constraints” – particularly those involving the effectiveness of governments – reduces this likelihood to 5-45%.
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Read the full post at Carbon Brief.
