2020-01-29

0.5°C makes a big difference for mitigation?

[Note: written rather a long time ago and finally published when I reviewed 2020.]

An interesting post from Glen Peters at Cicero. Keeping global warming below 2°C is hard, but 2.5°C is a walk in the park!; found via Twatter. Not everyone was happy with this, but I'm going to ignore The question is "when people argue 1.5/2C is not 'achievable' but 2.5/3C is a 'walk in the park', what are the unstated assumptions about policy, econ, and values being smuggled past scrutiny in that formulation?" because I don't think that is the interesting question, at least not to start with. The interesting question is, does changing target from 2 oC to 2.5 oC actually make things so much easier?

This had not previously occurred to me, and I had I thought about it I'd have said it didn't make all that much difference.

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