Climate Change:
A new study by the University of California, Davis published in the journal Nature suggests that the difference between a scenario where the Earth will be warmed by upto 1.8 degrees Celsius by the end of the 21st century and a scenario where the Earth will be warmed by upto 3.6 degrees Celsius depends on the social system.
- In other words, public perceptions of climate change, the future cost and effectiveness of climate mitigation and technologies, and how political institutions respond to public pressure are important determinants of the degree to which the climate will change over the 21st century.
- The study says that there is a “strong probability” of warming between 2 and 3 degrees Celsius at the end of the century.
- The key drivers of how climate change will shape up include people’s perceptions and social groups, the improvements in mitigation technology over time and the responsiveness of political institutions. These key drivers trump individual actions.
- When it comes to global warming, one of the most prominent temperature-control goals is the figure of 1.5 degrees Celsius, which is the target set out by the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement that was signed by 195 countries in 2015.
- Net-zero, also referred to as carbon-neutrality, is a state in which a country’s emissions are compensated by absorption and removal of greenhouse gasses from the atmosphere.
