Humanity Has Missed 1.5C Climate Target, Says UN Head (theguardian.com)
- Reference: 0179898876
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/10/28/1951245/humanity-has-missed-15c-climate-target-says-un-head
- Source link: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/28/change-course-now-humanity-has-missed-15c-climate-target-says-un-head
> In his only interview before next month's Cop30 climate summit, Antonio Guterres acknowledged it is [1]now "inevitable" that humanity will overshoot the target in the Paris climate agreement, with "devastating consequences" for the world. He urged the leaders who will gather in the Brazilian rainforest city of Belem to realise that the longer they delay cutting emissions, the greater the danger of passing catastrophic "tipping points" in the Amazon, the Arctic and the oceans.
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> "Let's recognise our failure," he told the Guardian and Amazon-based news organisation Sumauma. "The truth is that we have failed to avoid an overshooting above 1.5C in the next few years. And that going above 1.5C has devastating consequences. Some of these devastating consequences are tipping points, be it in the Amazon, be it in Greenland, or western Antarctica or the coral reefs.
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> He said the priority at Cop30 was to shift direction: "It is absolutely indispensable to change course in order to make sure that the overshoot is as short as possible and as low in intensity as possible to avoid tipping points like the Amazon. We don't want to see the Amazon as a savannah. But that is a real risk if we don't change course and if we don't make a dramatic decrease of emissions as soon as possible."
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/28/change-course-now-humanity-has-missed-15c-climate-target-says-un-head
Arbitrary and ineffective (Score:1)
The 1.5C target and such is all some odd, arbitrary marketing plan that convinced nobody. If anything, the fact that it is in Celsius upset a bunch of hicks and made them run for their lifted diesel dualies to go roll some coal. I don't have an answer, but things are already ugly. Just ask the Jamaicans, mon.
I hate to say it, but time to (Score:2)
...think about geoengineering our weather . Voluntary restraint isn't working. Paying about 3% of cargo ships to spray sea water behind them to generate more clouds seem to lowest hanging fruit so far.
It may have unintended side effects such that the major nations and/or biggest polluters will need to contribute to a fund that pays out to nations victimized by the side-effects.
Re: (Score:2)
The thing with the geoengineering you suggest is that it needs to go on forever.
A hiccup in global trade would make global temperatures skyrocket. What is the point of a crutch when you go jump off the cliff anyway?
Re: (Score:1)
> The thing with the geoengineering you suggest is that it needs to go on forever.
Not the worse thing. I expect technology will eventually give us better options anyhow, such as orbiting sun-shades.
> A hiccup in global trade would make global temperatures skyrocket.
Actually pollution cooled off during the pandemic. All those ships and planes are a big source of pollution. It's not a reversal, but slows things down. If you mean like WW3, we'd have far bigger concerns than climate.
China and India (Score:3)
The United States and Europe already lowering carbon emissions. Their charts are going down, which is what we need.
Asia is the problem. The worst by far is China, followed by India and Indonesia. They continue to increase carbon emissions (as do much of the smaller Asian countries with the exception of Japan).
Most of the rest of the world is mostly holding steady.
How did Europe and the US do it? Mature economies that switched to non-fossil fuels. Hydroelectric, wind, solar, etc. China and India are still trying to grow their economy and they cannot seem to do it on just the good stuff. So they add coal even while also adding add solar and wind.
10 years ago the US was the second largest coal burner (after China). We cut our coal use by half, while China has gone up by 10%, India almost doubled, and Indonesia is up by about 50%.
Hard to tell poor people just trying to live a better life that they have to sacrifice because of how horrible the US and Europe used to be.
But the problem IS solveable - as demonstrated by Europe and the US.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
> The worst by far is China
China has a lower carbon footprint per capita than the US. US doesn't have the high ground to point fingers.
And much of the pollution is from factories. If manufacturing goes elsewhere, the pollution will follow.
Re:China and India (Score:5, Insightful)
>> The worst by far is China
> China has a lower carbon footprint per capita than the US. US doesn't have the high ground to point fingers.
China has a much higher carbon footprint per unit of production, though, and that's the real problem. All the folks living in rural areas that bike around everywhere because they don't have cars are interesting culturally, but they're not particularly relevant from a greenhouse gas perspective, because they're also not producing significant economic output.
Most of the countries with high CO2 per dollar GDP are tiny countries with minimal production. China isn't. The U.S. and India produce 0.26 and 0.27 kg CO2 per dollar of GDP. China produces 0.42 kg per dollar. They are nearly twice as bad pollution-wise.
> If manufacturing goes elsewhere, the pollution will follow.
Except that this isn't the case. A lot of manufacturing has moved to India, and it still manages to produce barely half the CO2 per dollar that China does. Because India actually has laws on pollution and enforces them. Thailand (another country that is getting a decent amount of new manufacturing) pulls of 0.24 kg per dollar, which is even better than the U.S.
China talks the talk, but doesn't walk the walk. They pay lip service to lowering emissions while spewing more and more CO2. The only way this actually stops is if the U.S. and the E.U. impose a carbon tax on imports that makes it cheaper to do the right thing than to continue to pollute. If we do that, the problem will magically fix itself.
... which is to say that despite China being the problem from a pollution production perspective, we're the real problem over here on the other side of the world, because we're continuing to support their excessively dirty production by buying goods from them because they're cheaper.
Re: (Score:1)
> higher carbon footprint per unit of production
If we are including services, this seems a rather indirect metric.
One issue with China is that they don't have much oil so must import a fair amount. To be self-sufficient in an emergency they are keeping coal around.
Re: (Score:2)
You're both right.
We can't reasonably tell China they can't increase their per-capita CO2 output to at least what the Western world is at; it's absurd.
Of course you're also right- in that manufacturing is vastly more efficient in the west on a per-capita and per-gCO2 basis.
Do you see any way to tell them that they need to quit fueling their industry with coal while their average citizen uses 12% the power of a western person?
Re: (Score:2)
> Do you see any way to tell them that they need to quit fueling their industry with coal while their average citizen uses 12% the power of a western person?
That's more a poverty thing than anything else. As people earn more money, you'll see more people wanting cars, air conditioning, etc.
The thing is, they're also in the best position to take advantage of green tech to solve their power problems without horrible levels of emissions. Most of the technology is being physically built there, and they don't have two centuries of power plant infrastructure and steel smelting built around coal and coke. They're building up their industry *now*, in an era when it
Re: (Score:2)
The problem is the per capita use is the WRONG metric. By far. You do not get to just pick the one that makes them look good. That would be like saying New York City is doing the best in polar bear attacks.
China is a country that can be divided into two sections - a huge number of poor that make 1% of the C02 and the elite, that make far MORE coal than the average western person.
You should not get a free pass for your elite because you mistreat your poor.
China is the world's largest emitter in total.
Re: (Score:2)
Part of that solution was that the US and Europe outsourced their manufacturing to Asia. So the emissions are counted as Asia's, but they are for producing goods for US and European companies that will be shipped back to those markets.
China in particular has increased their coal usage, but they've also substantially increased their renewable energy. The solar capacity added just this year in Asia is more than the total solar output of North America. China's mix of energy is cleaner now than before, but tota
Missed it (Score:2)
[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibezAJvCqoc
On behalf of our children and grandchildren (Score:1)
Fuck you all very, very much
Re: On behalf of our children and grandchildren (Score:2)
Independent thinking includes knowing when someone else has more specialized knowledge than you, the delegating information on that subject to them. Climate science is definitely such a case. You do not understand this better than the experts.
Humanity? (Score:1)
Hu-Manity...it's close but I don't see how you get China and India into that word. I'd have gone with Chindia or Indo-China.
Sure, sure... (Score:2)
Because telling humans to do something, and do it this very moment has always worked well. Especially when it concerns things that require grave sacrifices to our lifestyle and freedom.
When do the break out the mulcher? (Score:2)
Soylent green is the future.
Re: (Score:1)
Population is dropping in "mature" nations. Maybe India will have to go Soylent.
Re: When do the break out the mulcher? (Score:1)
Birth rates are falling. There wont be enough soylent green.
Chosen for us (Score:2)
We didn't have a choice, this isn't something that the people of the world really did, almost all of this CO2 was produced by companies, sometimes on the behalf of things we use but we have zero control to change it. There are no signs this is going to stop, we will fly past 2C in under a decade.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, there was nothing we could do.
/me loads up the Dominoes app and turns the A/C down to 69.
This wasn't a demand-side problem, it was supply-side!
Predictable...now what (Score:4, Interesting)
Given the pushback against doing anything that many politiicans in North America have been offering, there is no surprise here. Heck, unlike many parts of the world, Nporth America is still destroying trains and public transit -- so if you cannot afford a car and fuel, walking is becomming your only option. And while some folks are calling for emergency geoengineering to address the issue, I for one am terrified that some rich fool will make it possible. Its not like we have a planet B to move to, even some of us, if they really screw it up. Some parts of the world are already pushing the habitable limits and it is not impossible to visualize extreme weather in a lot more places. In those places that can afford it, preparation for high winds and heavy rain might be reasonable. And low lying coastal areas... etc. Sad part is that there are huge areas in the world that could be more comfortable over time. But our leaders are already stringing the barbed wire and suggesting folls look elsewhere. Ain't going to be pretty... and I hope some of us survive. But one thing is certain, by avoiding doing anything we are finding the most expensive way possible.
I mean sure (Score:1, Troll)
Climate change is going to devastate the economy but have you seen the Jeffrey Epstein memorial ballroom? Real classy stuff when there.
And besides climate change is a myth. Like affordable Health Care and increasingly clean water and electricity.
Re: (Score:2)
for 90% of the worlds history it was hotter than it is now and its going back to being normally hot which is about 5-10c over where we are now. That is not because of us. The warming trend started about 17,000 years ago. The earth will warm, Antartica will thaw, and seas will rise over the next millennia or two. We all live in the world we find ourselves in. Our parents did, their parents did, and that has gone on for two million years, since hominids first walked the earth. Quite frankly, I could never hea
Re: (Score:2)
yes, you've posted this before, and been corrected before.
> At all because of tire particulate.
We're talking about global warming. Tire particulates have nothing to do with global warming.
> Because electric cars don't eliminate or even reduce smog.
Photochemical smog comes from the effect of ultraviolet on hydrocarbon and nitric oxide emissions. This is not produced by electric cars.
Split already! (Score:1)
Time to agree to split the nation. One side are total morons who don't trust any experts. Let them charlatanize each other and win all kinds of Darwin Awards, just don't let them rule us.
Maybe we can build a wall to keep them out and make them pay for it.
I think Lincoln f$cked up.
Re: (Score:3)
> I think Lincoln f$cked up.
That could be interpreted in two possible ways. I'm assuming you meant by bringing the South back in, rather than by freeing the slaves.
Lincoln didn't fuck up (Score:2)
The people after him did. We only did a little bit of reconstruction before we backed off. After that we let the South do whatever the hell they wanted and be as racist as they want it but for a time we were not going to let them do that.
Before long you have the daughters of the Confederacy spreading nonsense lies convincing people they weren't bad just because they hated people for the color of their skin. Not to mention the KKK.
And then along comes 1965 and Barry Goldwater loses and the Republican
Re: (Score:2)
Na, he was dead before reconstruction was abandoned (or even started, really)
Blame his successor.
Re: (Score:1)
> Blame his successor.
But see-saw leadership styles is expected. That's why the war was a bad idea. We could pressure them to abandon slavery via boycotts and tariffs, giving trade breaks to states that abandon it, perhaps incrementally.
Re: (Score:2)
> That's why the war was a bad idea. We could pressure them to abandon slavery via boycotts and tariffs, giving trade breaks to states that abandon it, perhaps incrementally.
Who attacked Fort Sumter?
WHO ATTACKED FORT SUMTER?
That faction is responsible for the war.
Now... who was that? What side? The fucking donkeys from the south, right?
Re: (Score:2)
I think probably very few people thought it was a good idea.
However, shit escalated.
You're right about the see-saw.
Reconstruction should not have been abandoned. Johnson should have been removed.
Re: I mean sure (Score:1)
Even Bill Gates has now called the doomers out.