PLEA Network

29 November 2021, Carbon Brief: Avoiding temperature ‘overshoot’ reduces multiple climate change risks, say scientists. Allowing global temperatures to temporarily “overshoot” end-of-century targets will drive greater economic loss and more severe climate impacts than staying below these targets throughout the century, new research says. Many future pathways for meeting the 1.5C and 2C warming targets by 2100 project that global temperatures will exceed these goals in the short term – and that negative emission techniques will be used later in the century to ensure that targets are met. However, two new studies published in Nature Climate Change highlight the benefits of meeting global temperature goals outright. The first study finds that staying below 1.5C or 2C throughout the 21st century reduces the risk of climate extremes, such as heatwaves. The authors find that after mid-century, temperature overshoot leads to higher mitigation costs and greater economic losses from the additional climate impacts. The second study highlights the longer-term economic benefits of keeping below temperature thresholds. It projects that by 2100, global GDP will be up to 2% higher in scenarios that avoid overshoot compared to those that do not. These “valuable” papers “give important insights on the consequences of emission pathways without large net-negative emissions during the second half of the century”, says a commentary article on the new research papers. Read more here