The target + 1.5 ° C is about to be buried in Sharm El-Sheikh?

As a bonus, Charter Glasgow has made this lofty target the main course for us to aim for. Not only did the 200 or so countries agree to “continue efforts” to stay below that limit. But they also recognized that the impacts of climate change would be much smaller if the temperature increased by 1.5°C instead of 2°C, bringing into action the key message of the Special Report 1.5 of Expert Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published in October 2018.

One step forward, two steps back?

COP27, which is currently in session Sharm Alsheikh, EgyptAre you going in the opposite direction? The answer is in the COP Decision. After negotiating the comma, this text summarizes all the points negotiated during the two weeks to which the states are committed. It is expected on Friday at the earliest. But countries have already expressed their reluctance to see a reference to a +1.5C target included.

And Agence France-Presse reported this case, especially China and Saudi Arabia. Lola Vallejo, director of the Climate Program at Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations (IDDRI), more generally to the Arab group and the group of like-minded developing countries. The first includes 21 countries – Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar … – whose economy is highly dependent on fossil fuels, in particular oil. The second, which means literally “developing countries that think the same”, is an automatic alliance of 24 emerging countries that consider the overly restrictive goal an obstacle to their development. They include China and then India.

This is not the first time that countries have opposed any reference to target 1.5 in a COP decision. “There are no more of them this year,” said Auror Mathew, director of international policy Climate Action Network (RAC). But this point of tension has special resonance this year. “We will be very vigilant on the issue of 1.5,” a member of the French delegation confirmed on Monday.

Already ambitious at half mast regarding mitigation…

Aurore Mathew agrees that the absence of a reference to 1.5 would be a “clear step backwards” compared to the Glasgow Charter. A really good deal that was chipped away within a year. Besides reaffirming this grand goal, the planet’s leaders also committed to getting to Sharm El-Sheikh with them Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) – what they plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions -, revised upwards. The goal was specifically to get closer to the 1.5°C trajectory, when current commitments lead us to a world much closer to +2.4°C by the year 2100.” In the end, fewer than thirty countries have done so, including Mexico last week. Aurore resumes Mathieu Turkey could follow suit this week, but we are far from the target. »

Sebastien Trier, CEO of IDDRI, remains optimistic about the mention of 1.5 in the final text of this COP27 conference. Western countries, as well as the most vulnerable [les petits états insulaires notamment, très écoutés à la COP], holding onto it tightly, begins. Moreover, that some oppose this signal does not mean that they want to drop this goal. China’s position, for example, is to say that the 1.5°C target is already included in the Paris Agreement, and was strongly supported last year, and this COP27 need not be repeated. “It is not enough, a priori, to make it a point of insurmountable obstruction…

“Science must be true”

But how long can a temperature of 1.5°C last? “The more countries ignore their commitments, the faster climate change will accelerate, and the more this goal will become strained,” fears Clément Senchal, climate campaign director for the organisation. Greenpeace France. In fact, it really is. Oct 27 Climate Action Group “Rebellion of the Scientists” Spread A letter signed by 1,000 researchers from 47 countries, calling for Bury Target 1.5. Not to say we can be less ambitious, but to remind us that “there is no longer any credible path” to achieving this goal. “Science must be honest,” defines the Giec ecologist and contributor Wolfgang Kramer, message site. If it is physically possible to limit global warming, we have lost a lot of time since 2015, and the commitments put forward today make that possibility almost out of reach. »

“The problem is to set that goal someday,” considers political scientist François Gemin, a specialist in climate migrations and also author of the IPCC. It was small island states that pushed for it, from COP15 in Copenhagen in 2009, when we already knew it was It cannot be achieved.The greenhouse gas concentration threshold corresponding to 1.5°C is 350 parts per million (ppm).It was exceeded in the mid-1980s, and we will almost certainly reach a warming of 1.5°C in the 2030s.

Danger of opening Pandora’s Box?

So back to the 2°C target? “Achieving this milestone will be very difficult and will require significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions,” François Gemin began. However, the world of politics is well aware that such a shift can “give the impression of capitulation” and “give states the opportunity to reduce their ambitions or buy time.” This is the danger identified by Sébastien Treyer and Clément Sénéchal. The latter in particular fears opening a Pandora’s box: “We will give ourselves the possibility of returning fixed political goals every time we notice that the slope becomes too steep.” This is what Emmanuel Macron has already done, during his first five-year term, with National Low Carbon Strategy (SNBC)* “, Treat.

Whatever the case, now is not the time to give up, insists Sebastien Trier, not too uncomfortable with the message of scientific rebellion. Or this post posted on The EconomistAnd the which goes in the same direction. “Giec is not saying that the 1.5 path is out of reach now. There are still decarbonization scenarios that make it possible to stay at the bottom. Certainly at the cost of radical shifts and with the probability of success diminishing the further we fall behind, but it is still possible.”