Why the fuss about two degrees rise in global temperature?
By the time the global community agreed almost unanimously to sign the Paris Agreement on climate change in December 2015 in Paris, France, there was no doubt that the goal of preventing the rise of average global temperature by above two degrees centigrade from pre-industrial levels was not going to be achieved. It, therefore, required that all countries take drastic measures towards climate change mitigation. This meant setting reduction targets for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that they intended to meet, which are referred to as Intended Nationally Determined Contributions. The two degree centigrade target (equivalent to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) was set during the Conference of the Parties to United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) held in Cancun Mexico in 2010. It was in the spirit of the UNFCCC, which is also known as the Climate Convention agreed upon during the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. The UNFCCC’s broad aim is to stabilise GHG concentrations in the atmosp