SteamyTea

Analysis and Environment Can we really reverse global warming after overshooting 1.5°C? A UN report says it’s possible to get global temperatures back down to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century, but many researchers regard this scenario as highly unlikely By Michael Le Page 2 September 2026 Fossil fuel emissions are likely to push the world past 1.5°C of warming Blossey/imageBROKER/Shutterstock The world is likely to overshoot 1.5°C of warming within the next few years, a report by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) acknowledges. However, it says it is still possible to cool the planet back down to this level by the end of the century. Can it really be done? It isn’t impossible, but it certainly isn’t the most likely outcome. The goal of limiting the increase in the average global surface temperature to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels looked implausible even back in 2015, when it was adopted as part of the Paris Agreement. The UNEP report can be seen as an “official” acknowledgment of what many have been saying for years: that it is now certain that we are going to blast right past this limit. But some aren’t giving up on the target. There are no good outcomes if we remain above 1.5°C, says Inger Andersen at UNEP. “Even if we exceed 1.5, let’s be very clear: that 1.5 target is still the goal. But now we need to approach it differently, from above.” Much of the report looks at the consequences of overshooting 1.5°C and the need for adaptation to cope with the severe impacts this will bring. “We will see increased food insecurity, increased water insecurity, impacts on human health – physical and mental – danger to our homes and our infrastructure,” says Debra Roberts at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa, one of the authors of the report. “This will lead to the loss of livelihoods and certainly lives.” The world isn’t prepared for overshooting 1.5°C, she says. “Therefore we have to advance our adaptation and development strategies to deal with those higher levels of warming, the greater range of risks and impacts… Adaptation needs to be transformational to allow us to plan for a changing world.” There will be no going back to how things were, says Roberts. “Some losses will be irreversible, which means returning to 1.5 doesn’t mean we return back to the same world we left.” But what exactly should we be preparing for? The report focuses on a scenario in which rapid emissions cuts and massive-scale removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere result in a return to 1.5°C of warming by the end of the century. But achieving this would require limiting temperature rises to no more than 1.8°C, says Roberts. Beyond this, there will be cascading effects from all the irreversible changes that make it much harder. However, restricting warming to this level requires a halving of global emissions by 2035, says report author Joeri Rogelj at Imperial College London. That seems highly unlikely given that emissions are still rising worldwide. In addition to emissions cuts, the scenario envisaged in the report also requires carbon removal on a truly gigantic scale – enough not just to balance out hard-to-tackle emission sources, such as farming, and achieve net zero, but to go well beyond that to remove around 10 gigatonnes of CO2 each year. That compares with current emissions of around 40 gigatonnes. This means scaling up carbon removal by a factor of around 100,000, says Reto Knutti at ETH Zurich in Switzerland, who wasn’t involved in the report. Cheap forms of carbon removal, such as planting forests, can’t be scaled up this much because there isn’t enough land. Direct air capture could be scaled up, but it is really expensive, he says. Knutti thinks achieving this is technically and financially possible, but not politically plausible. “We should be honest when we talk to policy-makers and the public that this is not the thing to plan for,” he says. “I think the plan should be to adapt for at least 2 degrees, if not more.” James Dyke at the University of Exeter in the UK is even less optimistic. “There are still no credible plans for large-scale carbon dioxide removal,” he says. “Human societies must adapt and prepare for a warmer and more dangerous world that will persist potentially for centuries.” Konstantin Weber, also at ETH Zurich, points out that among the latest emissions scenarios that will be used by climate modellers, only two imply a return to 1.5°C before 2150. The scenario based on current policies suggests warming of around 3°C by 2100. Until recently, overshooting and returning to 1.5°C was no more than a scientific thought experiment, says Oliver Geden at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. Now it could become the “official” plan B for 1.5°C. “The overshoot concept may turn out to be no more than a way to mask ongoing failure,” he says. But even if getting the temperature back down to 1.5°C isn’t likely, we have to try, says Weber. “We have to give it a shot. There’s no real alternative.” “Now is the time to double down on climate action, not to give up on it,” says Andersen. “Every fraction of a degree avoided, every year by which overshoot is shortened and every adaptation action taken will save lives, protect ecosystems and reduce economic losses.” Topics: Climate change

I would like one, but think it is too hard to make it dirty free. And a replacement hob won't fit.

I will go and help them for a modest salary. It looks similar to some places we lived in in South of France and the Dutch West Indies.

Which changes the wavelength to one that can heat the air molecules.

Lower case w is not a derived unit for two reasons, it is lower case, and no one famous has a name starting with W. Except a watt, W, named after a man. There is ω Which is angular frequency, radian per second. ω is not a w though, it is a lower case Greek omega. Sometimes it is printed in bold, ω.

Most of that will depend on the starting points i.e. if only a third of your country has access to reliable electricity. Also there is land use rights. The UK has a system set up to stop change, so everything takes a long time. And keep in mind new RE is extra capacity i.e. new generation. You can't compare costs to legacy generation easily, or fairly.

H is used to denote a henry, which is electrical inductance. A small h is generally used to denote hour, though it is not an SI derived unit. When it comes to energy, we should use J, for joule, as that is the agreed SI unit. Would be much easier if we stuck to that. Imagine that when you fill up your car, you buy by energy unit, not a volume. Then efficiency could be easily compared between fuel types.

kWh Thermal inertia is what you need to be looking at. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_inertia

My father was severely allergic to wasp stings. I have never wanted to put it to the test as I have all sorts of allergies. Apparently some people react normally to the first sting, then can get sever reactions to subsequent ones.

Generally, manufactured goods are now of better quality and last a lot longer. So 'industry' can produce more with less. Vehicle manufacturing was at all time records untill 2016, don't think the decline has anything to do with 'net zero', energy prices or lack of investment. Trying to think what happened 10 years ago, seem to remember that we were going to become world leaders.

Summer holidays have just finished, should be easier getting hold of people now, until last week of October.

Cancer is a generic term, it is not one condition, why I always take those sort of stories with a pinch of salt. I will just stick to using it to write erotic stories about you.

Higher memory prices and a cure for cancer. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0m39g7xzevo

Really. May work if you suspend yourself naked a few mill above the floor.

It is a lot more complicated than it first looks. Will you want cooling? Why place radiators against a potentially colder wall Wil any of the bedrooms be used for other purposes i.e. children doing home work in them. Will forced ventillation be fitted, with, or without heat recovery. Will secondary heating be fitted i.e. a wood burner (just don't fit one). How is the house expected to perform during the day and different seasons i.e. solar gain, or lack of it. How simple do you want the system. How controllable do you want the system. Do you want to take advantage of different, and potentially unknown, time of use tariffs.

Depends how it is worded and chatted. If x-axis is accidents, and y-axis is volume of useful paperwork, then if my hunch is right, it should be a negative correlation. Swap the axis around, and it becomes positive (but still shows the same result). if, on the other hand, the paperwork is too voluminous, badly written and unorganised, them the correlation could be 0, or flat, but with a lot of variance between data points.

Probably best to check them at the end of the heating season, rather than the beginning of the new heating system.

I suspect there is a stronger correlation between sites with good paperwork and low accident rates.

Like China is working towards, very rapidly. And India, sub Saharan Africa as well. I get the feeling that people that think 'Net Zero' is expensive rubbish think that we should have done it already, not done anything, blame others, not blame others, we are a good example, not a good example, it will make a difference, won't make a difference. I suggest that you all get together and come up with a coherent plan as why we should drop the policies and just carry on as normal, rather than divert the climate change debate to one about personal finances.

Isn't that because we have stopped burning coal to generate electricity? But our economy has changed to a service one. I don't think there was a debate about climate change, or energy pricing, when BL went under. The UK has always imported goods in relatively recent history, why we had such a large Navy and administratively controlled a third of the Earth's land. Yes. A theory that, if it was a science, would be called a Law. Not many electricians, brick layers, accountants or consultants build their own rockets and launch satellite to get broadband in rural areas. Similarly SpaceX does not farm potatoes, even though they control a lot of land.

Other countries are decarbonising as well. Not studies this in detail, and we are certainly not the best, or worse. https://ourworldindata.org/consumption-based-co2

By extracting more fossil fuels, it just delays the inevitable transfusion to overall cheaper renewables. Be a bit like not bothering to cover a roof as it seems cheaper to just repaint the ceiling every few weeks.

Amazon have a 'best price' policy. So that stops the traders selling bellow the Amazon price and also stops genuine bargains. Online trading is not for small sellers any more.

Sounds very scary. Makes me wonder which contractor has gone missing.

And the panel fit is better than the cars. (Sorry, could not resist)