Paris Climate Protocols Have Limited Global Heating To “Just” 2.6 Degrees C – CleanTechnica

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Research published last week by Climate Central and World Weather Attribution found that the Paris climate accords have been partially effective at reducing global heating. Without them, the planet would be on its way to a rise in average global temperature of 4º C. Because of them, the increase will be “only” 2.6º C, the research shows.

In a blog post describing the research, World Weather Attribution points out that the protocols agreed to in Paris in 2015 allowed each country to determine how much it would reduce its emissions and develop its own framework for how it would achieve the reductions in writing. Those written plans, known as Nationally Determined Contributions, were intended to be submitted and updated as progress toward reducing emissions occurred

In Paris, the signatories agreed to take action “to address climate change, respect, promote and consider their respective obligations on human rights, the right to health, the rights of indigenous peoples, local communities, migrants, children, persons with disabilities and people in vulnerable situations and the right to development, as well as gender equality, empowerment of women and inter-generational equity.”

Global Heating Report

The research shows that some emission reductions have occurred, which have helped to limit global heating. However, a significant gap remains between current pledges and the emissions cuts required to limit global temperature rise to 1.5° C this century. “Moreover, many countries are not on track to meet even their current pledges,” World Weather Attribution says.

Climate Central summarizes the findings of the research this way:

• The Paris Agreement provides an important legal and political framework toward a safer and fairer world. Projected warming this century has dropped from about 4° C in 2015 to 2.6° C today — if current emissions reduction pledges are fully implemented.
• However, 2.6° C of warming would still lead to a dangerously hot planet. Every fraction of a degree of warming results in more frequent and intense heat. The world now experiences an average of 11 more hot days per year with the additional 0.3° C of warming [that has occurred] since 2015. In a 2.6° C world, that increases to 57 extra hot days per year [emphasis added] compared to now. At 4° C, that rises to an additional 114 hot days per year.
• Case studies in this report confirm that extreme heat waves have already become more likely since 2015. Three of the six events studied would have been nearly impossible without climate change, and two of those are now about 10 times more likely to occur in 2025 than in 2015.
• Since 2015, heat early warning systems and action plans have expanded worldwide, but progress is insufficient and is slowed by limited financing for heat adaptation at the local level.
• The costs of inaction on extreme heat are rising faster than adaptation. Health, labor, and infrastructure are under strain, adaptation finance is insufficient, and the most vulnerable risk being left behind unprepared.
• The expected warming this century is still far above the Paris goals of keeping warming to 1.5° C and well below 2° C. The highest possible ambition as set out in the Paris Agreement to achieve deep, rapid, and sustained emissions reductions is urgently needed.

Pain & Suffering

“There will be pain and suffering because of climate change,” Climate Central vice president for science Kristina Dahl told NBC News. Dahl is a co-author of the report. “But if you look at this difference between 4º C of warming and 2.6º C of warming, that reflects the last 10 years and the ambitions that people have put forth. And to me, that’s encouraging.”

The study defines super-hot days for each location as days that are warmer than 90% of the comparable dates between 1991 and 2020. Since 2015, the world has already added 11 super-hot days on average, the research showed. “That heat sends people to the emergency room. Heat kills people,” Dahl said. The report doesn’t say how many people will be affected by the additional dangerously hot days, but co-author Friederike Otto of Imperial College London said “it will definitely be tens of thousands or millions, not less.” She noted that thousands die in heat waves each year already.

The IIED Study

This corresponds with research by the International Institute of Environment and Development, which found that hotter days are affecting many world cities. It reports that “The total number of days over 35º C in 2024 (1,612) was 52 percent higher than in 1994 (1058), across the 43 surveyed cities. The average number of days over 35º C in these cities has risen by 26 percent in the 31 year period studied, from an average of 1,062 per year between 1994 and 2003 to 1,335 per year between 2015 and 2024.”

35º C, for those who don’t do Celsius, it hot. In Fahrenheit, that is 95 degrees. If you think how expensive it will be to run the A/C when it is that hot outside, imagine for a minute what it is like for those who don’t have access to artificially cooled air.

The Guardian did not mince its words when reporting on the IIED study. It said quite clearly, “Global heating caused by fossil fuel burning is making every heatwave more intense and more likely. Extreme heat is likely to have caused the early death of millions of people over the past three decades, with elderly and poor people in fast-growing cities most deeply affected.” It adds that many world cities are also dealing with “climate whiplash” that brings deadly swings between extremely wet and extremely dry weather.

The researchers who prepared the joint Climate Central/World Weather Attribution study calculated the heat wave that baked southern Europe in 2023 was 70% more likely and 0.6º C (1.1º F) warmer than it would have been 10 years ago when the Paris agreement was signed. It also found that if the world’s climate efforts do not become more robust, a similar heat wave at the end of the century could be 3º C (5.4º F) hotter.

“In this report, we analyze heat conditions across past and future warming scenarios to show why the Paris goal of 1.5°C is crucial and why aiming for the highest possible ambition in the upcoming NDCs — to be discussed at COP 30 in Brazil in November — is essential for every country to achieve what the Paris Agreement set out in its preamble,” the authors stated.

Kristie Ebi, a public health and climate scientist at the University of Washington, told NBC News that other peer reviewed research has found a warmer climate caused by human activity has led to hundreds of thousands of deaths during recent heat waves. Ebi was not part of the Climate Central/World Weather Attribution study.

The Smallest Countries Will Be Affected The Most

The ten countries most likely to see the biggest increase in dangerous heat days are nearly all small and dependent on the ocean, including the Solomon Islands, Samoa, Panama, and Indonesia. Panama, for example, can expect 149 extra super-hot days. Altogether, those countries produced only 1% of the heat-trapping gases now in the atmosphere, but will get nearly 13% of the additional super-hot days, which illustrates how those least responsible for global heating are getting hammered by global heating the most.

“This report beautifully and tangibly quantifies what we’ve been saying for decades. The impacts of global warming are going to disproportionally affect developing nations that historically haven’t emitted significant quantities of greenhouse gases,” University of Victoria climate scientist Andrew Weaver, who wasn’t part of the study team, told NBC News. “Global warming is driving yet another wedge between have and have not nations. This will ultimately sow seeds of further geopolitical instability.”

Hawaii and Florida are the US states that will see the biggest increase in super-hot days by the end of the century under the current carbon pollution trajectory, while Idaho will see the smallest jump, the report found. How interesting that Florida, which is under the thumb of Mad Dog DeSantis, forbids any state agency to mention “climate change” in any official communications.

Rabid Ron can always take the money he gets from fossil fuel companies and escape to an underground shelter in New Zealand, leaving the citizens of the Sunshine State to fend for themselves as the waves lap ever closer to their communities. He shows that ignorance can be purchased, but it will cause the death of millions. What a sorry epitaph for the human race.