Speaker 1: Welcome to Zero. I'm Oscar Boyd. This week you've probably
Speaker 1: seen new stories about a World Meteorological Organization study that
Speaker 1: says that the global average temperature for a single year
Speaker 1: is likely to exceed the one point five degrees celsius
Speaker 1: threshold sometime before twenty twenty seven. There's been a lot
Speaker 1: of discussion around what this all means. So for this
Speaker 1: short bonus episode of Zero, I'm sitting down with Acsha
Speaker 1: to understand the implications. Acua, Welcome to Zero.
Speaker 2: Nice to be here.
Speaker 1: So, first off, why is the one point five degrees
Speaker 1: celsius number so important?
Speaker 2: Well, one thing, because two hundred countries have agreed on it.
Speaker 2: The Paris Agreement, which was signed in twenty fifteen, had
Speaker 2: almost every country on the planet say that they will
Speaker 2: keep warming well below two degrees celsius and try to
Speaker 2: keep it below one point five degrees celsius. But it
Speaker 2: is a good question because both those targets are kind
Speaker 2: of arbitrary, and what do you mean by that? There
Speaker 2: is no scientific basis to say two degrees celsius is
Speaker 2: when the planet gets kirked and humans die. It's what
Speaker 2: was politically feasible and was seen to be politically feasible
Speaker 2: when discussions leading up to the Paris Agreement were taking place. Now,
Speaker 2: at that time, only two degrees celsius was on the radar,
Speaker 2: and then island nations got really angry because from their perspective,
Speaker 2: sea levels would rise so much that many of their
Speaker 2: countries would be entirely underwater, and so from their side,
Speaker 2: it was a complete no goo and they wanted a
Speaker 2: more ambitious goal. And because of that more ambitious goal,
Speaker 2: they landed with one point five degrees celsius. And from
Speaker 2: a scientific perspective, really every point one degree celsius matters,
Speaker 2: and so you want to avoid as much warming as possible.
Speaker 2: But we are also bound by international law, and that
Speaker 2: is currently the Paris Agreement.
Speaker 1: And international law can only work in kind of nice
Speaker 1: round numbers. It so happens, and that one point five
Speaker 1: degree celsius figure, that's become more and more important since
Speaker 1: the Paris twenty fifteen agreement, right it has.
Speaker 2: There was another United Nations report in twenty eighteen that
Speaker 2: showed that if you hit the one point five degree
Speaker 2: celsius goal versus only meeting the two degrees celsius goal,
Speaker 2: the world would be a much better place it will
Speaker 2: be trillions of dollars richer, the impacts on people will
Speaker 2: be much less, Agricultural productivities won't fall, your weather patterns
Speaker 2: won't be as extreme, and so aiming for one point
Speaker 2: five degrees celsius is a good idea, and the report
Speaker 2: helped us come up with net zero by twenty fifty,
Speaker 2: which has become a rallying cry across governments and corporations.
Speaker 1: What does this new report from the WMO say.
Speaker 2: Well, it's a technical report, so I'll read out what
Speaker 2: the technical report says technically, okay, which is there is
Speaker 2: a sixty six percent likelihood that the annual average near
Speaker 2: surface global temperature will rise above one point five degrees
Speaker 2: celsius compared to pre industrial levels for at least one
Speaker 2: year between twenty twenty three and twenty twenty seven.
Speaker 1: And so for people whose eyes have just gently glazed over,
Speaker 1: what does that mean in can of regular person.
Speaker 2: Speak, that there is a very high likelihood that sometime
Speaker 2: over the next five years there'll be one year when
Speaker 2: global average temperatures are higher than one point five degrees celsius,
Speaker 2: and that will be quite the jump from the previous record,
Speaker 2: which was set in twenty sixteen at one point two
Speaker 2: to eight degrees celsius.
Speaker 1: So if we cross this one year at one point
Speaker 1: five degree celsius threshold, does that mean that one of
Speaker 1: the two big goals of the Paris Agreement is moot.
Speaker 2: No, because the Paris Agreement is very clear the goal
Speaker 2: is to keep warming below one point five degrees celsius
Speaker 2: for the long term. So to breach the Paris Agreement goal,
Speaker 2: the global average temperature will have to exceed one point
Speaker 2: five degrees celsius consistently for many years for that to happen,
Speaker 2: A single year doesn't do it.
Speaker 1: You mentioned twenty sixteen being the previous host this year
Speaker 1: on record that was a al Nino year? Is that
Speaker 1: what's driving this expected heat this time around as well?
Speaker 2: Well? Most of the heat we should know is coming
Speaker 2: from greenhouse gas emissions. The more fossil fuels we burn,
Speaker 2: the more cot be put into the atmosphere, the thicker
Speaker 2: the blanket on the planet, and the warmer it gets.
Speaker 2: So there is this background warming which continues to increase.
Speaker 2: But yes, there are other complicating factors that have planetary
Speaker 2: impacts which can both increase or decrease average temperatures. So
Speaker 2: for the last three years we've been in this lan
Speaker 2: Ninia phase, which is a complicated phenomena, but to simply
Speaker 2: understand it, it brings up a lot of cold water
Speaker 2: from deep in the Pacific Ocean, and that helps cool
Speaker 2: the planet compared to where average temperatures would have been otherwise,
Speaker 2: whereas al ninion does the opposite correct, and that means
Speaker 2: it exacerbates the warming, and that would be one reason
Speaker 2: why breaching the one point five degree celsius threshold becomes
Speaker 2: more likely.
Speaker 1: So one reaction I've seen to this reporting is it's
Speaker 1: only temporary, why should we care? So why do you
Speaker 1: think we should care? Well, the WMO reports are annual.
Speaker 1: There was one last year which said alarming things, and
Speaker 1: there will be one next year which we'll say more
Speaker 1: alarming things. So a single report doesn't change things. But
Speaker 1: it's the nature of news that we move from one
Speaker 1: outrage to another. However, climate change is this thing in
Speaker 1: the background that just keeps getting worse, and these reports
Speaker 1: are a good check on where things stand and a
Speaker 1: good moment to discuss why we are heading in that direction.
Speaker 1: And these reports actually provide details that are crucial. So
Speaker 1: one other technical thing it says is that there's a
Speaker 1: ninety eight percent chance, which in scientific term is an
Speaker 1: almost certainty, that over the next five years we will
Speaker 1: breach the twenty sixteen record of one point two eight
Speaker 1: degree celsius warming in a single year. It also says,
Speaker 1: for example, that the Arctic is now warming disproportionately more
Speaker 1: than the rest of the planet. Over the next five years,
Speaker 1: that warming is supposed to be as much as three
Speaker 1: times the global average, and that's bad because that will
Speaker 1: cause sea ice to melt, which will expose the ocean,
Speaker 1: which is darker, which will absorb more heat and make
Speaker 1: things worse. There's also information about precipitation patterns and that
Speaker 1: affects agricultural productivity, movement patterns, migration, droughts, and those are
Speaker 1: all things we should think about and worry about. So
Speaker 1: then the other reaction to this reporting is are we
Speaker 1: doing Is this a moment where we cross this figure
Speaker 1: for the first time and just important of everything that
Speaker 1: is to come.
Speaker 2: And the answer again is no, because it's not like
Speaker 2: crossing one point five degrees celsius in one ear means
Speaker 2: some irreversible thing has happened. There are real tipping points,
Speaker 2: things like the Amazon going from a rainforest to becoming
Speaker 2: a savannah, the Arctic becoming completely ice free, and all
Speaker 2: those things are things we should worry about. But the
Speaker 2: sad part is most of these tipping points we cannot
Speaker 2: predict when they will happen, and often we only really
Speaker 2: find out that they've happened when we look back. And
Speaker 2: that's why these reports are important, because scientists are warning
Speaker 2: us that we should keep below the temperature targets that
Speaker 2: we've set and avoid hitting these tipping points altogether.
Speaker 1: And there is some new reporting right that's just come
Speaker 1: out recently that says there is some hope that we
Speaker 1: might actually meet at least the two degree target.
Speaker 2: Yes, there's also a different study that came out this
Speaker 2: week in Nature Climate Change which says that if and
Speaker 2: it's a big if, all the pledges that countries have
Speaker 2: made so far are met, global average temperature in the
Speaker 2: long term can be kept below two degrees celsius and
Speaker 2: as close as to one point seven degrees celsius. That's
Speaker 2: never happened in the past. Countries haven't made those commitments
Speaker 2: until now. Of course, that also means that people have agency,
Speaker 2: because it's governments and corporations that have to meet these
Speaker 2: goals and people can hold them to account.
Speaker 1: And do you think this report, having come out with
Speaker 1: so much coverage, is likely to increase the number of
Speaker 1: people holding those companies and their governments to account? Will
Speaker 1: it kickstart more aggressive action on climate change? Well, one
Speaker 1: can hope.
Speaker 2: So. Just looking historically, the WMO has been publishing these
Speaker 2: reports annually for quite some time, and they did not
Speaker 2: always make front page news, and they did not always
Speaker 2: trigger a bonus episode on a climate podcast. These are
Speaker 2: moments which are created because of a report with a
Speaker 2: stark warning, that lead to conversations, and those conversations are
Speaker 2: honestly very important to be had.
Speaker 1: Now, well, thank you, accha, And at some point we'll
Speaker 1: do a bonus episode which is not all doom and glue?
Speaker 2: Yes, why do we always choose a bad science report
Speaker 2: to talk about a bonus episode?
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Zero. If you enjoyed this episode,
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Speaker 1: Bloomberg dot net. Zero's producer is me Oscar Boyd and
Speaker 1: senior producer is Christine Jesco. Our regular host is Accha Rathi.
Speaker 1: You just heard his beautiful voice. It's a technical report
Speaker 1: and it says technical Special thanks to zarahirj You, Olivia
Speaker 1: Rauggard and Kira Benjum. For more reporting on the climate
Speaker 1: crisis and its solutions, head to Bloomberg dot com slash
Speaker 1: green