FAQ 1.1
Why are we talking about 1.5°C?
Summary: Climate change represents an urgent and potentially irreversible threat to human societies and the planet. In recognition of this, the overwhelming majority of countries around the world adopted the Paris Agreement in December 2015, the central aim of which includes pursuing efforts to limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C. In doing so, these countries, through the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), also invited the IPCC to provide a Special Report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emissions pathways.
At the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21) in December 2015, 195 nations adopted the Paris Agreement2. The first instrument of its kind, the landmark agreement includes the aim to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change by ‘holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels’.
The first UNFCCC document to mention a limit to global warming of 1.5°C was the Cancun Agreement, adopted at the sixteenth COP (COP16) in 2010. The Cancun Agreement established a process to periodically review the ‘adequacy of the long-term global goal (LTGG) in the light of the ultimate objective of the Convention and the overall progress made towards achieving the LTGG, including a consideration of the implementation of the commitments under the Convention’. The definition of LTGG in the Cancun Agreement was ‘to hold the increase in global average temperature below 2°C above pre-industrial levels’. The agreement also recognised the need to consider ‘strengthening the long-term global goal on the basis of the best available scientific knowledge…to a global average temperature rise of 1.5°C’.
Beginning in 2013 and ending at the COP21 in Paris in 2015, the first review period of the long-term global goal largely consisted of the Structured Expert Dialogue (SED). This was a fact-finding, face-to-face exchange of views between invited experts and UNFCCC delegates. The final report of the SED3 concluded that ‘in some regions and vulnerable ecosystems, high risks are projected even for warming above 1.5°C’. The SED report also suggested that Parties would profit from restating the temperature limit of the long-term global goal as a ‘defence line’ or ‘buffer zone’, instead of a ‘guardrail’ up to which all would be safe, adding that this new understanding would ‘probably also favour emission pathways that will limit warming to a range of temperatures below 2°C’. Specifically on strengthening the temperature limit of 2°C, the SED’s key message was: ‘While science on the 1.5°C warming limit is less robust, efforts should be made to push the defence line as low as possible’. The findings of the SED, in turn, fed into the draft decision adopted at COP21.
With the adoption of the Paris Agreement, the UNFCCC invited the IPCC to provide a Special Report in 2018 on ‘the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emissions pathways’. The request was that the report, known as SR1.5, should not only assess what a 1.5°C warmer world would look like but also the different pathways by which global temperature rise could be limited to 1.5°C. In 2016, the IPCC accepted the invitation, adding that the Special Report would also look at these issues in the context of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change, sustainable development and efforts to eradicate poverty.
The combination of rising exposure to climate change and the fact that there is a limited capacity to adapt to its impacts amplifies the risks posed by warming of 1.5°C and 2°C. This is particularly true for developing and island countries in the tropics and other vulnerable countries and areas. The risks posed by global warming of 1.5°C are greater than for present-day conditions but lower than at 2°C.
FAQ1.1, Figure 1
A timeline of notable dates in preparing the IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C (blue) embedded within processes and milestones of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC; grey), including events that may be relevant for discussion of temperature limits.
