The sixth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is not a pleasant read, especially when it comes to the goal of limiting global warming caused by fossil-fueled industrialization to 1.5 degrees.
If that succeeded, the planet would simply have a sustained, slightly higher rate of extreme weather events, and perhaps even some tropical coral reefs would survive.
But we won't get off so lightly. The 1.5 degrees are actually not manageable. The most optimistic scenario that the researchers have calculated is called SSP1-1.9 and was specially compiled as a possible path that politics, economy and society would have to tread to keep it at 1.5 degrees. But even under this scenario, the 1.5 degrees “more likely than not” - that means: with a probability of more than 50 percent - will be achieved by 2040.
It's just that people don't like to communicate that. Activists and politicians would rather operate with the remaining less than 50 percent probability and shout that it can be done - if you just start immediately to work hard to reduce CO₂ emissions. This fails to recognize what SSP1-1.9 requires: net emissions of exactly zero tonnes of CO₂ from the year 2055 onwards.
After that, for every new sack of cement and every flight of a kerosene-powered rescue helicopter, the carbon released in the process must be removed from the air - by reforesting areas that are not clear whether they are available, or with technologies that have so far not been practicable are. Yes, half of all countries in the world have today set reduction targets that could prevent 1.5 degrees or more - but only if the other half, including China and Australia, also set these targets and then all strictly adhere to them .
It is important to emphasize that even so, every single ton of unemitted CO₂ saves the earth from worse. Coal and oil must have no future. But it is a dream to believe that the planet will remain what it is. He won't. And if we don't plan accordingly now, in the end the costs, suffering and dissatisfaction over the question of guilt will only increase.