Comment: 1.5 degree climate target is 'ambitious' but vague
Release Date 09 December 2015
Climate scientists at the University of Reading have commented following the publication of the draft text of an international agreement at the COP21 negotiations in Paris.
Prof Nigel Arnell, Professor of Climate Change Science at the University of Reading, said:
"Today's draft of an agreement marks a step forward from Sunday's draft which included many important issues that were still to be decided. A commitment to support adaptation is virtually finalised, although there will be still much discussion on the size of the funds pledged.
"There remain two big issues which are still not resolved. The first is the target for the rise in temperature. The text offers up ‘below 2 degrees', ‘well below 2 degrees' and ‘below 1.5 degrees' as options for discussion. However none of those targets is properly defined, so whichever option is chosen it could still be open to interpretation. The 1.5 degree target in particular looks very ambitious.
"The second problem is the long-term goal for what to do after 2030. We know that the pledges in themselves are not enough to achieve even 2 degrees without deeper reductions after 2030. The draft text still contains several alternative variations, some of which are very vague, but there is a commitment to review progress in the future, which is good.
"Overall the draft text provides a really good starting point for the final stages of negotiation, but there are lots of details to confirm before we get an agreement."
Prof William Collins, Prof of Meteorology at the University of Reading, said:
"The parties have put together an ambitious document. If the agreed limit on warming is reduced to 1.5 degrees this will be very challenging to achieve and will require removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by the end of the century.
"The most ambitious scenario assessed by the IPCC had an average warming of 1.6 degrees above pre-industrial and we are currently exceeding the emissions in that scenario."