Target 1.5: Tackling global warming

Target 1.5: Tackling global warming

News:

1. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), recently released a report in Seoul  highlighting the impacts that developing countries like India would face if global warming touches 2°C as compared to 1.5°C.

Important Facts:

2. The IPCC makes it clear that the human and economic costs of a 2°C rise are far greater than for 1.5°C, and the need for action is urgent.
3. Risks to food security and water, heat exposure, drought and coastal submergence all will increase significantly even for a 1.5°C rise.
4. Human activity has warmed the world by 1°C over the pre-industrial level and with another half-degree rise (1.5°C), many regions will have warmer extreme temperatures, raising the frequency, intensity and amount of rain or severity of drought.

Note

The Paris Agreement aims to keep global temperature rise in this century well below 2°C compared to pre-industrial levels and pursue efforts to limit the increase even further, to 1.5°C.

5. Likely Impacts:

• India, Pakistan and China are already suffering moderate effects of warming in areas such as water availability, food production and land degradation, and these will worsen, as the report says.
• Closer to a 2°C increase, these impacts are expected to spread to sub-Saharan Africa, and West and East Asia.
• The prognosis for India, of annual heat waves by mid-century in a scenario of temperature increase in the 1.5°C to 2°C range, is particularly worrying and India  is among the regions that would experience the largest reductions in economic growth in a 2°C scenario.

6. Steps to be taken:

• The sensible course for national policy would be to fast-track the emissions reduction pledges made for the Paris Agreement.
• Governments should achieve net zero CO2 addition to the atmosphere, balancing man-made emissions through removal of CO2.
• The commitment to generate 100 GW of solar energy by 2022 should lead to a quick scale-up from the 24 GW installed, and cutting down of coal use.
• Agriculture needs to be strengthened with policies that improve water conservation, and afforestation should help create a large carbon sink.