Point of No Return on Climate Change Nearing

There’s nothing mysterious about what it will take to limit climate change: The world needs to transition away from fossil fuels towards renewable energy.

But the timing of that transition is extremely important.

According to a new study published in the journal Earth System Dynamics, we could soon cross a point of no return. After that, it’ll be almost impossible to keep Earth’s temperature from rising 2 degrees Celsius.

The goal of the Paris agreement was to cut emissions enough to keep the planet from crossing that limit, since scientists have determined that more than 2 degrees of warming could have catastrophic effects.

The new study calculates that if the world’s governments don’t initiate a transition to clean energy sources by 2035 — meaning that the share of renewables starts to grow by at least 2% each year — we’ll almost certainly pass that point of no return.

The exact year could change, according to the researchers’ model, if new technology can remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, or if we see quicker growth in renewables. But no matter what, the deadline is coming soon.

LINK (via: Business Insider)

One thought on “Point of No Return on Climate Change Nearing

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *