Rich countries should stop using coal by 2030 and oil and gas by 2040, with poor countries to follow a decade later, to give the world a chance to limit temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius, UN climate scientists have said.
In a note to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, the UN body on climate change, on the occasion of the cop28 negotiations, climate scientists from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and the University of Exeter said that there is very little room for anything but a full stage. From fossil fuels.
Their sharp schedule comes as climate negotiators at the cop28 talks in Dubai are grappling over the future of oil, gas and coal, responsible for the lion’s share of anthropogenic planet-heating emissions.
The UN climate negotiations are tasked with helping the world achieve the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial levels, but they have often been vague on how to achieve this goal.
The director of PIK Johan Rockstrom said that the new calculations sent to the UN show that the world is getting rid of the use of fossil fuels quickly and on a large scale, which makes the discussions at COP28 on decarbonization by 2050 or the plan of gradual “phasing out” next to this point.
“Discussions should revolve around serious and fair efforts to start implementing the phase-out plan,”he added.
