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Three years left to limit warming to 1.5C, leading scientists warn

The Earth could be doomed to breach the symbolic 1.5C warming limit in as
little as three years at current levels of carbon dioxide emissions. That’s
the stark warning from more than 60 of the world’s leading climate
scientists in the most up-to-date assessment of the state of global
warming.

Nearly 200 countries agreed to try to limit global temperature
rises to 1.5C above levels of the late 1800s in a landmark agreement in
2015, with the aim of avoiding some of the worst impacts of climate change.

But countries have continued to burn record amounts of coal, oil and gas
and chop down carbon-rich forests – leaving that international goal in
peril. “Things are all moving in the wrong direction,” said lead author
Prof Piers Forster, director of the Priestley Centre for Climate Futures at
the University of Leeds.

“We’re seeing some unprecedented changes and we’re
also seeing the heating of the Earth and sea-level rise accelerating as
well.” These changes “have been predicted for some time and we can directly
place them back to the very high level of emissions”, he added. At the
beginning of 2020, scientists estimated that humanity could only emit 500
billion more tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) – the most important
planet-warming gas – for a 50% chance of keeping warming to 1.5C.

But by the start of 2025 this so-called “carbon budget” had shrunk to 130 billion
tonnes, according to the new study. That reduction is largely due to
continued record emissions of CO2 and other planet-warming greenhouse gases
like methane, but also improvements in the scientific estimates. If global
CO2 emissions stay at their current highs of about 40 billion tonnes a
year, 130 billion tonnes gives the world roughly three years until that
carbon budget is exhausted.

 BBC 19th June 2025, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn4l927dj5zo

June 22, 2025 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | climate change