Scientists criticized the Paris Agreement on climate change ahead of its signing in a high-level ceremony.
More than 160 countries will convene in New York on Friday to sign the Paris Agreement, a historic international agreement on climate change, which would aim to cap global temperatures at 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, an objective that would be highly difficult to achieve, according to experts.
The Paris Agreement to try to cap global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius marked a stunning political victory for poor countries threatened by climate change.
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However, as international leaders gather on Friday for a formal signing ceremony at the UN, experts have expressed doubts and concerns over the target set by world leaders to try to keep the rise in the planet’s temperature limited to 1.5 °C.
"1.5 C is almost certainly not feasible without an overshoot," said Peter Frumhoff, chief scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington, expressing a view shared — if not frequently articulated — by climate experts.
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Joeri Rogelj, a climate modeller at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis agreed, "It will be very hard — if not impossible — to keep warming below 1.5 C during the entire 21st century.”
Even under optimistic scenarios, he told AFP, greenhouse-gas emissions may push Earth past the 1.5 C threshold by 2050, perhaps sooner.
Glen Peters, a senior researcher at the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research in Oslo argues that U.N. sponsored climate change research should re-prioritize its efforts.
The special 1.5 C report of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, he said, should "not fixate on developing unachievable" scenarios for cutting greenhouse gases.
The thousands of scientists working under the IPCC umbrella could be more useful in trying to figure out exactly how much carbon humanity can pump into the atmosphere without foreclosing a liveable future, he added.
In order to become a legally binding agreement, 55 countries must ratify it. But it is not just the number of countries, it is also the amount they emit. The signatories must represent at least 55 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions.
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