Are temperature rises of 1 °C dangerous or can we get away with rises of 10 °C? Surely, even the most ardent sceptic would accept that rises of 100 °C would be catastrophic. So, when does calamity start?
Those seeking to delay action to combat climate-change are strangely quiet on this question. Climate scientists have an answer. They reported, in 2018, that serious consequences will accelerate rapidly between 1.5 °C and 2.0 °C.
Eight years after that report, warming Is close to their lower limit with the temperature rise in 2025 more than 1.4 °C above pre-industrial levels. So, we would expect significant impacts to be beginning to emerge. And they are!
Wild fires, for example, have seen a doubling of the susceptible area of Earth’s surface between 1979 and 2013. Almost wherever you live in the world, the number of heatwave days has tripled since the 1950s whilst the duration of floods has increased by a factor of 2.5. The cost of all this damage is now starting to climb with climate-related insurance claims totalling $600 billion over the past two decades.
As we reach global warming of 1.4 °C there are clearly emerging signs of significant damage from climate change, as expected if the impacts climb strongly after 1.5 °C.