2°C rise ‘disastrous’ for poor

The 24th Conference of Parties (CoP) at Katowice, Poland, on climate change from December 2 to 14 will indicate whether or not the Paris Agreement (which entered into force in November 2016) will be relevant.

This was one of the key takeaways of a media briefing on climate change organised by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) here last week. The Paris Agreement prescribes an overarching temperature goal — to keep the increase in global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C.

The IPCC’s Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C establishes that the world has already warmed by 1°C since pre-industrial levels. Some regions have warmed even more. India, for instance, has warmed by about 1.2°C between 1901 and 2017, according to CSE research,

The impact at 2°C will be far higher than at 1.5°C and will be catastrophic for the poor and the vulnerable communities. This makes 2°C an anti-poor target.