Every discussion of climate change seems to come with talk about the 1.5 degree target. But with the pace of climate change and the inaction of political lea...

Contents

00:00 - Intro
01:01 - 1.5 aint SMART
02:19 - What does 1.5 actually mean?
03:13 - How do we know?
04:44 - Can we do it?
05:31 - What’s at stake
07:00 - 1.5 by when?
08:04 - Shall we give up on 1.5?
09:17 - 1.5 is slipping out of reach

TL;DW: Probably not yet but we only have a handful of years to turn things around. Current modelling suggests that a 20 year average temperature for 2023 sits at about 1.26° C

  • Dogyote@slrpnk.net
    0·
    9 months ago

    Why have a target at all instead of just saying we gotta do this asap? Is there a psychological reason? I feel like having a target and missing it may be worse than not having a target. I’m probably wrong, someone correct me please

    • spaduf@slrpnk.netOP
      0·
      9 months ago

      I mean actionable policy plans absolutely necessitate concrete goals. In this case, missing it seems to be more reflective of massive problems with our modeling than any sort of failure to act. When that goal was set absolutely nobody was seriously considering the possibility we would surpass it in the early 20s.

      • Dogyote@slrpnk.net
        0·
        9 months ago

        Is the modeling the problem? I thought we just had one particularly hot year but we still haven’t passed 1.5°C when the average is considered.

        • spaduf@slrpnk.netOP
          0·
          9 months ago

          Well there’s two relevant points there:

          • The 1.5 degree warming targets set by the Paris Climate Accords are based on a 30 year average. One of the main points of the video and a recent popular point of conversation for climate communicators has been that this is simply too long a time span to be used as an actionable metric. This would mean that it would take at least 15 years of average temps being that high before it officially triggers anything.
          • Current models absolutely suggest that period will start sometime in this decade, which was absolutely not the case for SOTA models in 2015