Tag Archives: 1.5°C

The Quadra Project: Uninhabitable – Part 1

A global temperature review of 2024 confirms the trend that has been so concerning to climatologists. The last 10 years have been the warmest on record, and 2024 has been the warmest yet. The European Copernicus calculation measured 2024 as 1.6°C above the pre-industrial temperature, with most days being above the 1.5°C aspirational target set by the Paris Agreement (COP21) in 2015. Other organizations measured a slightly different temperature for 2024: NASA at 1.47°C, NOAA at 1.46°C, and Berkley Earth at 1.62°C. The differences are technical but the trend is the same. Global temperatures are rising in concert with our greenhouse gas emissions.

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Liberals’ climate wing backs Carney for leader

By John Woodside, Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

The climate wing of the Liberal Party is rallying around Mark Carney, offering the former central banker credibility on a file the Grits see as their competitive advantage over Conservatives.

This week Carney picked up endorsements from Environment and Climate Change Minister Steven Guilbeault, Energy and Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson (who previously served as environment minister), and MP Ryan Turnbull, a major proponent of sustainable finance who served as the Parliamentary Secretary under former Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland.

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Global Average Temperatures Of Select Nations: A Report Card

While the world has already reached the threshold of a 1.5°C increase in global temperatures, many scientists believe it is still possible to get back on track. According to the 2023 UN Emissions Gap Report, this would require a 42% cut in our emissions. It would take a 28% reduction to keep emissions below 2.0°C by the end of this century. A tool on the Berkeley Earth website shows each nation’s emissions in 2022, their current trajectory by 2100 and where it could be if all net zero pledges are met. 

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Burning out: B.C. wildfire fighters share stories from the frontlines

By Matt Simmons, The Narwhal, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

“It’s like someone turned the fire switch on and it’s just not stopping.”

That’s what wildfire ecologist Kira Hoffman told me in November, as we discussed our new wildfire reality. I can’t help but think back to that conversation today, as we watch the out-of-control blazes burn Los Angeles, putting at least 180,000 residents under evacuation orders and engulfing entire neighbourhoods in the second-largest U.S. city. It’s all happening in January, a month that should have brought some rain to southern California; instead, the region is drought-stricken and bone dry.

It points to an uncomfortable reality: we need to be thinking about wildfires year-round, and not just when fires are actively burning where we live.

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On the Threshold of a 1.5°C World

While there is some disagreement as to whether we have crossed the 1.5°C threshhold set at COP 21 in Paris, scientists agree that we are on the brink and 2024 was the hottest year on record.

At COP 29 last November, Jim Skea, Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) explained, “Children born today will not know a world without climate change. The IPCC has shown that we, and furthermore they, will live in a world marked by more intense storms, exceptional heatwaves, devastating floods and droughts, a world where food chains are disrupted, and where diseases reach new countries.”

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