It is an open secret in climate circles that limiting global warming to 1.5° Celsius is no longer possible. As the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) in Dubai approaches, we must abandon this target, which has become an obstacle to truly innovative action.
GENEVA – The negotiators and activists preparing to attend the upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) in Dubai are grimly aware that there is no realistic chance of limiting global warming to 1.5° Celsius above pre-industrial levels. But what has become an open secret in climate circles must be shared more widely. Paradoxically, it may be the only way to muster the political will needed to eschew incrementalism in favor of disruptive action that is commensurate with the scale of the challenge.
The official view remains that the 1.5°C target set by the 2015 Paris climate agreement is still achievable, but only if we act decisively and immediately. While that may be true in theory, the necessary reforms are politically painful and therefore almost non-existent. Global coal consumption, for example, climbed to a new all-time high of 8.3 billion tons in 2022. Moreover, Chevron and ExxonMobil recently invested a combined $113 billion in securing additional oil and gas reserves – an unambiguous bet on the long-term profitability of fossil fuels.
It has become starkly apparent that we are barreling toward global temperatures at least 2°C above pre-industrial levels. This aligns with the International Energy Agency’s recent conclusion that, based on today’s policies, global emissions could push up average temperatures by around 2.4°C this century.
A future beyond 1.5°C will look very different from our current reality, and every tenth of a degree will have major consequences. At 2°C warming, it is estimated that around 40% of the world’s population will be exposed to severe heatwaves, while up to one-third will experience chronic water scarcity. The human cost, in terms of displacement, lost livelihoods, and early deaths, will be unprecedented, with vulnerable communities, largely in poorer countries, bearing the heaviest burden.
We must do everything within our power to prevent these outcomes. But, ironically, raising false hopes of achieving the 1.5°C target has become a roadblock to progress on climate action. As NatureFinance highlights in a publication released on the eve of COP28, “Time to Plan for a Future Beyond 1.5 Degrees,” this goal reflects our ambition but, perversely, has embedded the fiction of a “win-win” energy transition, whereby the future world looks much like ours, only without carbon emissions. This narrative, promoted by many political, business, and civil-society leaders, constrains our response, forcing us to act within the confines of conventional wisdom.
Humans struggle to react to slow-moving crises. Escaping this pattern usually requires a “new truth” to become self-evident, often through a sudden jolt that cements a paradigm shift and broadens the realm of possibility.
At a time of escalating global turmoil, there is an urgent need for incisive, informed analysis of the issues and questions driving the news – just what PS has always provided.
Subscribe to Digital or Digital Plus now to secure your discount.
Subscribe Now
In the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis, for example, finance ministers and central bank governors abandoned the long-held belief that monetary expansion must be avoided at all costs for fear of inflation; instead, they embraced quantitative easing – in effect, printing money – to stimulate recovery. Similarly, after the COVID-19 pandemic erupted, leading G20 governments renounced their commitment to fiscal probity and adopted costly universal-income payments previously derided as utopian fantasy.
Pivoting to a “beyond 1.5°C” narrative could provide the jolt necessary to reject a business-as-usual mindset in favor of interventions that break from accepted norms and disrupt the status quo. Consider, for example, the existential issue of food security. Helping vulnerable smallholder farmers shift to regenerative practices might work in a world where warming is limited to 1.5°C. But it could hinder their pivot away from farming methods and livelihoods that will no longer exist if temperatures exceed that target.
At the same time, global food supply chains may become less important beyond 1.5°C of warming, as producing countries restrict exports and major sovereign importers like China focus on achieving self-sufficiency. Such on-shoring is likely to accelerate investment in capital-intensive food production that is more climate-resilient and less nature-dependent, including vertical farming and lab-grown proteins. Judging by the rollout of renewable-energy technologies, the main challenge may be deploying these resilient food systems at scale in poorer countries.
The finance sector is also ripe for disruption. Investments must urgently be steered away from carbon-intensive assets. Yet ongoing efforts to factor climate-related risks into asset valuation and allocation have obviously failed. Much bolder action is needed to align financial flows with national and international climate policies and commitments. Central banks and supervisors, for example, must move beyond financial risk and discard their cherished policy independence, which they have previously done in times of crisis. Under such circumstances, regulators could align with national net-zero policy goals and international commitments in imposing mandatory requirements on financial institutions to deliver net-zero, nature-positive portfolios within a certain timeframe.
Realism about the 1.5°C target is necessary to abandon incremental efforts and begin thinking bigger. Truly innovative climate action is impossible without letting go of this much-hoped-for goal and the comforting vision of an illusory future that accompanied it. While such a pivot would not guarantee success, it could unlock unconventional measures to limit rising temperatures and prepare for a warmer world.
Click here to download NatureFinance’s pamphlet, “Time to Plan for a Future Beyond 1.5 Degrees.”
To have unlimited access to our content including in-depth commentaries, book reviews, exclusive interviews, PS OnPoint and PS The Big Picture, please subscribe
With German voters clearly demanding comprehensive change, the far right has been capitalizing on the public's discontent and benefiting from broader global political trends. If the country's democratic parties cannot deliver, they may soon find that they are no longer the mainstream.
explains why the outcome may decide whether the political “firewall” against the far right can hold.
The Russian and (now) American vision of "peace" in Ukraine would be no peace at all. The immediate task for Europe is not only to navigate Donald’s Trump unilateral pursuit of a settlement, but also to ensure that any deal does not increase the likelihood of an even wider war.
sees a Korea-style armistice with security guarantees as the only viable option in Ukraine.
Rather than engage in lengthy discussions to pry concessions from Russia, US President Donald Trump seems committed to giving the Kremlin whatever it wants to end the Ukraine war. But rewarding the aggressor and punishing the victim would amount to setting the stage for the next war.
warns that by punishing the victim, the US is setting up Europe for another war.
Within his first month back in the White House, Donald Trump has upended US foreign policy and launched an all-out assault on the country’s constitutional order. With US institutions bowing or buckling as the administration takes executive power to unprecedented extremes, the establishment of an authoritarian regime cannot be ruled out.
The rapid advance of AI might create the illusion that we have created a form of algorithmic intelligence capable of understanding us as deeply as we understand one another. But these systems will always lack the essential qualities of human intelligence.
explains why even cutting-edge innovations are not immune to the world’s inherent unpredictability.
GENEVA – The negotiators and activists preparing to attend the upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) in Dubai are grimly aware that there is no realistic chance of limiting global warming to 1.5° Celsius above pre-industrial levels. But what has become an open secret in climate circles must be shared more widely. Paradoxically, it may be the only way to muster the political will needed to eschew incrementalism in favor of disruptive action that is commensurate with the scale of the challenge.
The official view remains that the 1.5°C target set by the 2015 Paris climate agreement is still achievable, but only if we act decisively and immediately. While that may be true in theory, the necessary reforms are politically painful and therefore almost non-existent. Global coal consumption, for example, climbed to a new all-time high of 8.3 billion tons in 2022. Moreover, Chevron and ExxonMobil recently invested a combined $113 billion in securing additional oil and gas reserves – an unambiguous bet on the long-term profitability of fossil fuels.
It has become starkly apparent that we are barreling toward global temperatures at least 2°C above pre-industrial levels. This aligns with the International Energy Agency’s recent conclusion that, based on today’s policies, global emissions could push up average temperatures by around 2.4°C this century.
A future beyond 1.5°C will look very different from our current reality, and every tenth of a degree will have major consequences. At 2°C warming, it is estimated that around 40% of the world’s population will be exposed to severe heatwaves, while up to one-third will experience chronic water scarcity. The human cost, in terms of displacement, lost livelihoods, and early deaths, will be unprecedented, with vulnerable communities, largely in poorer countries, bearing the heaviest burden.
We must do everything within our power to prevent these outcomes. But, ironically, raising false hopes of achieving the 1.5°C target has become a roadblock to progress on climate action. As NatureFinance highlights in a publication released on the eve of COP28, “Time to Plan for a Future Beyond 1.5 Degrees,” this goal reflects our ambition but, perversely, has embedded the fiction of a “win-win” energy transition, whereby the future world looks much like ours, only without carbon emissions. This narrative, promoted by many political, business, and civil-society leaders, constrains our response, forcing us to act within the confines of conventional wisdom.
Humans struggle to react to slow-moving crises. Escaping this pattern usually requires a “new truth” to become self-evident, often through a sudden jolt that cements a paradigm shift and broadens the realm of possibility.
Winter Sale: Save 40% on a new PS subscription
At a time of escalating global turmoil, there is an urgent need for incisive, informed analysis of the issues and questions driving the news – just what PS has always provided.
Subscribe to Digital or Digital Plus now to secure your discount.
Subscribe Now
In the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis, for example, finance ministers and central bank governors abandoned the long-held belief that monetary expansion must be avoided at all costs for fear of inflation; instead, they embraced quantitative easing – in effect, printing money – to stimulate recovery. Similarly, after the COVID-19 pandemic erupted, leading G20 governments renounced their commitment to fiscal probity and adopted costly universal-income payments previously derided as utopian fantasy.
Pivoting to a “beyond 1.5°C” narrative could provide the jolt necessary to reject a business-as-usual mindset in favor of interventions that break from accepted norms and disrupt the status quo. Consider, for example, the existential issue of food security. Helping vulnerable smallholder farmers shift to regenerative practices might work in a world where warming is limited to 1.5°C. But it could hinder their pivot away from farming methods and livelihoods that will no longer exist if temperatures exceed that target.
At the same time, global food supply chains may become less important beyond 1.5°C of warming, as producing countries restrict exports and major sovereign importers like China focus on achieving self-sufficiency. Such on-shoring is likely to accelerate investment in capital-intensive food production that is more climate-resilient and less nature-dependent, including vertical farming and lab-grown proteins. Judging by the rollout of renewable-energy technologies, the main challenge may be deploying these resilient food systems at scale in poorer countries.
The finance sector is also ripe for disruption. Investments must urgently be steered away from carbon-intensive assets. Yet ongoing efforts to factor climate-related risks into asset valuation and allocation have obviously failed. Much bolder action is needed to align financial flows with national and international climate policies and commitments. Central banks and supervisors, for example, must move beyond financial risk and discard their cherished policy independence, which they have previously done in times of crisis. Under such circumstances, regulators could align with national net-zero policy goals and international commitments in imposing mandatory requirements on financial institutions to deliver net-zero, nature-positive portfolios within a certain timeframe.
Realism about the 1.5°C target is necessary to abandon incremental efforts and begin thinking bigger. Truly innovative climate action is impossible without letting go of this much-hoped-for goal and the comforting vision of an illusory future that accompanied it. While such a pivot would not guarantee success, it could unlock unconventional measures to limit rising temperatures and prepare for a warmer world.
Click here to download NatureFinance’s pamphlet, “Time to Plan for a Future Beyond 1.5 Degrees.”