This week, the world’s climate chickens came home to roost. A new United Nations report outlined in clear terms what is now inevitable: that global warming will exceed 1.5 degrees, and under even best-case scenarios we’re on track for warming of at least 1.8 degrees.
Meanwhile, federal ministers delivered conflicting messages on Australia’s stance on climate, one calling for an accelerated transition away from fossil fuels, while another suggested that the lack of wars in the Asia-Pacific region was all thanks to Australian fossil fuel exports.
A warning to prepare for a global warming “overshoot”
This week, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) published a new report titled “Limiting Overshoot” which outlines in stark terms that the world is now set to blow past 1.5-degrees of global warming.
The UNEP warns this means there is a desperate need to scale up adaption measures in preparation for worsening climate impacts, planning now for how the world can remove accumulated excess emissions from the atmosphere to not just limit but actively lower global temperatures, and to further ramp-up and accelerate emissions reductions.
