WHEN the 2015 Paris Agreement anchored the goal to keep global warming 鈥�well below 2掳C鈥�, 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 we are set to see the temperature rise around 2.4掳C or more above pre-industrial levels by 2100, while the tradition of UN 鈥渄oomer鈥� reports before COP28 鈥� now under way in Dubai 鈥� is even more pessimistic.
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There are two problems with this view. First, it assumes almost no additional climate policy action relative to today. For example, the report, charting the difference between planned fossil fuel production and that needed to meet the Paris goals, largely ignores extra policy pledges already in motion by governments and references 鈥済overnment projections鈥� that have consistently lagged real world trends. And while talk is cheap when it comes to climate, actual policy has continuously accelerated over the past decade. We were on a pathway to more than 3.5掳C of warming in 2014, but are on the 2.4掳C one now, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).
This gives rise to the second issue, the focus on top-down commitments and projections 鈥� in other words those imposed by government policy 鈥� which the represent. In practice, there is growing evidence that bottom-up changes, for example those led by a shift in consumer behaviour, put us on track to do better than country-level climate targets suggest.
As a result, assumptions around the achievability of the Paris goals have been skewed. To reappraise them, the climate forecast body I am project director of, (IPR), tracked over 500 global policy and climate tech announcements since COP26 in 2021, surveyed over 100 climate experts in 12 countries and carried out extensive analysis of the social and market drivers of policy to make 300 forecasts across 21 major economies, covering 75 per cent of global emissions.
We that, while there will still be isolated examples of backsliding, the trend is a clear acceleration in decarbonisation. Consider that, in the past year, we have seen the passage of the climate-friendly US Inflation Reduction Act and the European Union carbon border adjustment mechanism, while it has emerged that China is on course to hit its wind and solar targets five years ahead of schedule. This picking up of the pace is set to continue both this decade and beyond.
The impact of these and other changes means that emissions are likely to fall 80 per cent by 2050 and hit net zero by 2080, causing temperature rises to peak between 1.7掳C and 1.8掳C, with a 90 per cent chance of staying below 2掳C. Our work shows that meeting this Paris goal, far from being impossible, is now the most likely outcome.
Many accuse us of wearing rose-tinted glasses. But in countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 90 per cent of policies we forecast are already in motion. And while 鈥渨ell below 2掳C鈥� is very much in reach, we are clear the tougher 1.5掳C goal no longer appears feasible.
We don鈥檛 say all will be smooth or simple. And a 鈥渨ell-below-2掳C鈥� world won鈥檛 be pretty, as social tipping points, including mass movement of people and conflict for resources as vast areas around the equator become effectively uninhabitable, strain global cohesion and economic and political stability. But while a below-2掳C outcome isn鈥檛 a done deal, it is far more likely than a 2.5掳C-plus world, where emissions effectively plateau at current levels for the rest of the century, which seems absurd in light of present trends. That is a sentence neither I, nor many of us who were in Paris, imagined we would be writing.
Jakob Thom盲e is at the Inevitable Policy Response and School of Oriental and African Studies, London
