Comment and Environment

Paris climate goal of less than 2°C of warming is within our grasp

Despite pessimism over global warming, the agreed target of keeping it well below 2°C is actually looking increasingly likely to be met, says Jakob Thomäe

By Jakob Thomäe

29 November 2023

New Scientist Default Image — Simone Rotella

WHEN the 2015 Paris Agreement anchored the goal to keep global warming “well below 2°C“, most people I spoke with at the time thought it was dead on arrival. I was at the COP21 summit in France and, despite the can-do spirit, many people felt achieving this was effectively impossible.

Conventional wisdom says we are set to see the temperature rise around 2.4°C or more above pre-industrial levels by 2100, while the tradition of UN “doomer” reports before COP28 – now under way in Dubai – is even more pessimistic.

There are two problems with this view. First, it assumes…