UNU: Preparing for a future beyond “dangerous” climate change

In the 2009 Copenhagen Accord, world leaders adopted a threshold of 2°C global warming above pre-industrial as indicative of two disparate futures – one with a world of tolerable levels of change and the other with a world of severe, undesirable impacts on people, the environment, institutions and infrastructure.

Global emissions of greenhouse gases have, however, continued to rise, making it more and more likely that this 2°C ‘guardrail’ will be exceeded. This has led to a need to explore the consequences of even higher levels of warming. The global community deserves to have an understanding of the consequences of exceeding this guardrail in order to inform judgments about how urgently to act to mitigate warming. Additionally, in case the ambitious 2°C threshold was to be surpassed, a pressing question remains: what impacts of climate change are communities likely to witness, and how much time do they have to adapt?

The science underpinning climate projections has developed substantially since the 1990s, allowing a much more comprehensive assessment of climate risks. The international climate negotiations have also evolved. In previous years, scientists sought to find solutions for the allocation of the global “carbon budget”, determine the threshold of acceptable emissions levels, and solve the puzzle of long term-planning from present day to the next century. Especially since the Cancun Adaptation Framework (2010), consumers of climate science – and those funding corrective actions – have widened their interest in how communities may need to adapt to climate change and to what loss and damage could result when coping mechanisms and risk management strategies fail.

Read the rest of the article in the UNU website.

Source: Article from the UNU website from 25.11.2015In the 2009 Copenhagen Accord, world leaders adopted a threshold of 2°C global warming above pre-industrial as indicative of two disparate futures – one with a world of tolerable levels of change and the other with a world of severe, undesirable impacts on people, the environment, institutions and infrastructure.

Global emissions of greenhouse gases have, however, continued to rise, making it more and more likely that this 2°C ‘guardrail’ will be exceeded. This has led to a need to explore the consequences of even higher levels of warming. The global community deserves to have an understanding of the consequences of exceeding this guardrail in order to inform judgments about how urgently to act to mitigate warming. Additionally, in case the ambitious 2°C threshold was to be surpassed, a pressing question remains: what impacts of climate change are communities likely to witness, and how much time do they have to adapt?

The science underpinning climate projections has developed substantially since the 1990s, allowing a much more comprehensive assessment of climate risks. The international climate negotiations have also evolved. In previous years, scientists sought to find solutions for the allocation of the global “carbon budget”, determine the threshold of acceptable emissions levels, and solve the puzzle of long term-planning from present day to the next century. Especially since the Cancun Adaptation Framework (2010), consumers of climate science – and those funding corrective actions – have widened their interest in how communities may need to adapt to climate change and to what loss and damage could result when coping mechanisms and risk management strategies fail.

Read the rest of the article in the UNU website.

Source: Article from the UNU website from 25.11.2015