Global warming will exceed 1.5-degree limit, UN says

Global warming will exceed 1.5-degree limit, UN says SETH BORENSTEIN THE ASSOCIATED PRESS PUBLISHED 9 HOURS AGO Open this photo in gallery: Activists participate in a demonstration for phasing out fossil fuels at the COP29 UN Climate Summit, Nov. 19, 2024, in Baku, Azerbaijan. SERGEI GRITS/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS COMMENTS SHARE SAVE FOR LATER Listen to this article Learn more about audio Log in or create a free account to listen to this article. In a strategic retreat in the fight against climate change, the United Nations has acknowledged that Earth has lost its chance to prevent some of the worst of global warming’s harms. So now the world must figure out how to get temperatures below the danger zone and back to safety, officials say. Earth is soon going to exceed the safe temperature threshold agreed upon by the world in the 2015 Paris climate accord because of warming from the burning of coal, oil and gas, according to a bleak first-of-its-kind report issued by the United Nations Environment Programme Wednesday. Instead of giving up, scientists and U.N. officials recommend trying to limit excessive warming and then bring the temperature back down to the agreed-upon threshold. But it still will mean decades of increased weather-related disasters, rising seas, extinctions and melting ice and glaciers. “Humanity is speeding past the limit to avoid climate catastrophe,” United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said. After a period of over-the-limit warming, the new strategy envisions getting back below the limit by ending fossil fuel use and developing some kind of way to suck industries’ carbon dioxide out of the air. “It’s a reality check. We have to live with this warmer world,” said report co-author Richard Betts, a climate scientist at the University of Exeter. “But there’s still a lot we can do to limit warming.” Opinion: Not addressing climate change costs the economy more. When will we finally get this? After the Paris climate accord, the United Nations ordered its climate science arm to study different warming limits. A goal of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above mid-19th century temperatures became generally accepted after the scientists found dramatic impacts that affect people and the planet at 2 degrees Celsius (3.8 degrees Fahrenheit) but not at 1.5 degrees. The world is now at 1.4 degrees Celsius (2.5 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels, some scientists have calculated. The measure is based on…