Who bears responsibility for Earth surpassing the 1.5°C temperature limit that was established by the Paris Agreement in 2015? This is what a recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences hopes to address as an international team of researchers investigated methods that can be used to monitor the regional responsibility for exceeding the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C temperature limit.
“As we near the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C limit, the question is not just about when we will exceed it, but also how we collectively deal with the consequences in the subsequent period,” said Dr. Setu Pelz, who is a research scholar at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis and lead author of the study. “To guide efforts that minimize overshoot and establish who should pay for harms caused during this period, we measure who is responsible and to what extent under a range of scenarios and approaches.”
For the study, the researchers used what they referred to as “net-zero carbon debt” to place responsibility on regions that are not adhering to the Paris Agreement conditions on climate change. They determined this by running a series of computer models to simulate future scenarios of carbon emissions and temperature increases across the globe. In the end, the researchers found the amount and speed of carbon removal needed in different regions to stay within climate limits. Essentially, they pinpointed which regions bear the responsibility of upholding their promise to not surpass the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C temperature limit.
The study concludes by saying, “A collapse in global cooperation will likely see increased magnitude and duration of temperature limit exceedance, causing further harm to younger generations in all regions.”
What new discoveries about who bears responsibility for surpassing the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C temperature limit will researchers make in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!
As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!
Sources: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, EurekAlert!
