Emissions must peak by 2025 for 1.5°C: IPCC

Emissions must peak by 2025 for 1.5°C: IPCC

London, 4 April (Argus) — Global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions must peak before 2025 to keep global warming within Paris climate agreement limits, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said today, entailing a rapid shift away from unabated fossil fuel use.

Global GHG emissions must peak before 2025 at the latest in scenarios aiming to limit global warming to 1.5°C or 2°C compared with pre-industrial levels, the IPCC finds in its latest working group report on climate change mitigation. The 2015 Paris climate agreement aims to limit global warming to well below 2°C and preferably to 1.5°C.

GHG emissions must be reduced by 43pc and methane by a third by 2030 to meet the 1.5°C target, while GHG emissions would need to be cut by a quarter by the end of the decade to meet 2°C, the IPCC says, with "rapid and deep and in most cases immediate" reductions needed across all sectors for both targets. In either case it is "almost inevitable" that the temperature threshold will be breached temporarily, but it could be brought back below the limit by 2100.

The IPCC recognises that progress has been made in climate action. But policies implemented by the end of 2020 would