Climate change: UNO's most important finding is widely misunderstood
Written byTimes Magazine
According to the scientists involved in the study, key findings from the latest IPCC climate report were widely misinterpreted.
The researchers wrote that greenhouse gases are expected to peak "by 2025 at the latest". Carbon could rise for another three years, and the world could still avoid dangerous warming. However, scientists say I'm afraid that's not right, and emissions should be reduced immediately.
The latest IPCC report focuses on reducing or reducing emissions of gases that are the leading cause of warming. In summary, for policymakers, the researchers said it was still possible to avoid the most dangerous levels of warming by keeping global temperatures below 1.5C this century.
This will require a significant effort as CO2 emissions must fall by 43% by the decade to remain below this hazard threshold.
But before they go down, emissions have to peak — and in the text explaining the idea, the report gets confusing.
Most media outlets, including the news, have concluded that emissions could increase by 2025, and the world could still stay below 1.5C.
"If you read the text as outlined, it gives the impression that you have reached 2025, which I think is a miserable result," said Glenn Peters of the Center for International Climate Research in Oslo and lead author at the IPCC.
"That is a sad choice of words. But, unfortunately, this has the potential to have some very negative consequences."
So what's wrong?
One reason is that the climate models scientists use to predict temperatures work in five-year blocks, namely 2025 following 2020, for example, without reference to the years in between.
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