Image description: Wildfire with the silhouettes of people looking on. Image by Issy Bailey / Unsplash
The planet’s remaining carbon budget to meet the international target of 1.5°C has just two years left at the current rate of emissions, according to the latest Indicators of Global Climate Change study published in the journal Earth System Science Data.
The carbon budget is how much planet-heating CO2 can still be emitted by humanity while leaving a reasonable chance that the temperature target is not void. The central estimate of the remaining carbon budget for 1.5°C is 130 billion tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) (from the beginning of 2025). The latest assessment found that to achieve a 66% chance of keeping below the 1.5C target, emissions from 2025 onwards must be limited to 80bn tonnes of CO2, which is 80% lower than it was in 2020. The assessment estimated the budget for 1.6°C or 1.7°C could be exceeded within nine years with current emission levels.
Professor Piers Forster, Director of the Priestley Center for Climate Futures at the University of Leeds and lead author of the study, warned “that both warming levels and rates of warming are unprecedented” and “Continued record-high emissions of greenhouse gases mean more of us are experiencing unsafe levels of climate impacts.” He says this reaffirms that climate policies and pace of climate action are not able to keep up with the scale of change needed to address the compounding impacts.
Professor Joeri Rogelj from Imperial College London has stressed the need for countries to commit to significant emissions cuts at the upcoming UN Cop30 climate summit in November. He said every year is the best year to start being serious about emissions reduction because every fraction of warming we can avoid will result in less harm and suffering, particularly for poor and vulnerable populations.
Scottish Government unveils new carbon budget proposals
The Scottish Government has announced new carbon budget proposals to replace its net zero climate targets. Ministers have pledged a five-yearly cycle of carbon budgets, which they say aim to wind down emission more steadily and be more resistant to outside forces like unseasonable cold snaps driving up heating demand.
Annual targets were abandoned by Scottish ministers last year after they were repeatedly missed but the pledge to reach net zero by 2045 was retained. The new approach is used in other parts of the world including France, England and Wales. The new target states emissions need to fall by an average of 57% over the next five years and by 69% by 2035, when compared with 1990 levels.
If the new carbon budgets are approved by MSPs in the autumn, they will set “clear” legal limits on emissions in Scotland for the next two decades.