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 atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system.

There are a number of considerations that both rich and poor countries needed to come to terms with the setting of GHG emissions targets. As a start, they needed to assess the consequent impacts of such measures to economic activity, energy and transport among other key sectors within developed countries. These are sensitive issues that would have potentially far-reaching political and social impacts, hence the need for careful evaluation of the impacts. It is principally for these reasons that the GHG emission reduction targets remain voluntary.

For poorer developing countries, it would be unfair to impose very strict emission targets given that they still need to grow towards becoming middle income and rich in the spirit of ensuring fair distribution of the benefits conferred by the natural environment and its resources, some of which include non-renewable fossil fuels. In other words, rich countries have a right to maintain and even improve their high standards of living. In the same vein, poor countries have a right to ensure that their citizens will get out poverty in the long run.

This is the reason why Paris Agreement is in truth a “consensus document” intended at achieving that delicate balance where the interests of rich countries are protected, but through which these countries express an obligation to help poorer countries to achieve social economic development by pursuing low carbon development pathways.

For this to become possible, rich countries agreed to help pay for climate change adaptation programmes that poorer countries will have to undertake to cope with damage mainly caused by rich countries. On their part, rich countries committed to stringent emission targets. For example, the European Union in its Climate and Energy Framework targets to cut GHG emissions by 40 per cent below 1990 levels while increasing the share of renewable energy to 27 per cent.

Benefits of aiming for these targets include: ensuring affordable energy for all consumers; increasing the security of energy supplies, reducing our dependence on energy imports; and creating new opportunities for growth and jobs. Other benefits relate to environmental and health benefit such as reduced air pollution.