A Clash of Degrees: How Much Should Nations Allow the Earth to Warm?

The mantra has been: limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius or risk climate catastrophe. But at COP27, there are signs of backsliding.

SHARM EL SHEIKH, Egypt — At last year's global climate talks in Glasgow, leaders, scientists and business leaders rallied around a call to "keep 1.5 alive".

The mantra referred to a goal ambition that every government endorsed in the 2015 Paris climate agreement: try to prevent global average temperatures from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial. Beyond this threshold, according to scientists, the risk of climatic disasters increases significantly.

Now 1.5 clings to life.

At the UN climate summit in this Red Sea city, countries clash over whether to continue aiming for the 1 .5 degrees.

The United States and the European Union both say that any final agreement at the summit, known as COP27, should stress the importance to limit warming to 1.5 degrees.

But a few nations, including China, have so far resisted efforts to reaffirm the 1, 5 degree, according to negotiators from several industrialized countries. Failure to do so would be a major departure from last year's climate pact and, for some, a tacit admission of defeat.

"When I got here , I had a strong sense of regression,” said Mary Robinson, the former president of Ireland who leads a group of prominent former leaders called the Elders. Alongside the leaders of nearly 200 of the world's largest companies and civil society groups, Ms Robinson signed a letter urging governments at climate talks to stick to 1.5 degrees.

This temperature goal is "a safe limit of life", Ms Robinson said, adding: "Every tiny fraction of a degree rise is harmful, and we need to struggle to avoid exceeding 1.5".

For some nations, the dispute goes beyond numbers. Leaders of low-lying island nations say large swathes of their territories could be washed away if average global temperatures rise above 1.5 degrees. "It is indeed a matter of survival for all vulnerable countries," said Kwaku Afriyie, Ghana's Minister of Environment.

At a gathering of 20 largest economies in the world held in Bali, Indonesia, this week, leaders said they were "committed to continuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius", putting pressure on the diplomats at climate talks in Egypt.

But as global carbon dioxide emissions hit a record high this year, some negotiators fear that regardless of what agreed on paper, the 1.5 degree target will soon be out of reach. The planet has already warmed by an average of 1.1 degrees Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels, and according to current national government policies, the world is on course to warm by 2.1 to 2.9 degrees Celsius this century, according to a recent UN report.< /p>

"The goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees is on life support," said the Prime Minister Philip Davis of the Bahamas in a speech to world leaders at the Egyptian conference. "This is a hard truth for many to accept, as even the best scenarios will mean almost unimaginable upheaval and tragedy."

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