Climate Impacts at 1.5°C and 2°C – Where half a degree makes a difference

Presenter: Dr Tabea Lissner, Climate Analytics

The ultimate objective of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is to “prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system”. In this context, the Paris Agreement sets a long-term temperature goal of holding the global average temperature increase to well below 2 °C, and pursuing efforts to limit this to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels. While discussions around these temperature limits have been on-going for years, assessments of the implications of such levels of global temperature increase is still limited.
In this talk I will present a regionally differentiated analysis on impact shifts between these levels of warming for a range of impact indicators. Our study shows a discernible differences between the two warming levels on the regional level and our results indicate that tropical regions will bear the brunt of impacts.