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50-50 chance world will breach 1.5 degrees Celsius warming within five years, UN warns

The World Meteorological Organization said there is a 93% chance of at least one year between 2022-2026 becoming the warmest on record.

LAST UPDATE | 10 May 2022

THERE IS A 50-50 chance that global temperatures will temporarily breach the benchmark of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels in one of the next five years, the United Nations has warned.

The 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change saw countries agree to cap global warming at “well below” 2 Celsius above levels measured between 1850 and 1900 – and 1.5 degrees Celsius if possible.

“The chance of global near-surface temperature exceeding 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels at least one year between 2022 and 2026 is about as likely as not,” the UN’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said in an annual climate update.

The WMO put the likelihood at 48%, and said it was increasing with time.

An average temperature of 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial level across a multi-year period would breach the Paris aspirational target.

There is a 93% chance of at least one year between 2022-2026 becoming the warmest on record and dislodging 2016 from the top ranking, said the WMO.

The chance of the five-year temperature average for 2022-2026 being higher than the last five years (2017-2021) was also put at 93%.

“This study shows – with a high level of scientific skill – that we are getting measurably closer to temporarily reaching the lower target of the Paris Agreement,” said WMO chief Petteri Taalas.

“The 1.5 degrees Celsius figure is not some random statistic. It is rather an indicator of the point at which climate impacts will become increasingly harmful for people and indeed the entire planet.”

‘Edging ever closer’

The Paris Agreement level of 1.5 degrees Celsius refers to long-term warming, but temporary exceedances are expected to occur with increasing frequency as global temperatures rise.

“A single year of exceedance above 1.5C does not mean we have breached the iconic threshold of the Paris Agreement, but it does reveal that we are edging ever closer to a situation where 1.5C could be exceeded for an extended period,” said Leon Hermanson, of Britain’s Met Office national weather service, who led the report.

The average global temperature in 2021 was around 1.11 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, according to provisional WMO figures.

The report said that back-to-back La Nina events at the start and end of 2021 had a cooling effect on global temperatures.

However, this was only temporary and did not reverse the long-term global warming trend.

La Nina refers to the large-scale cooling of surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean, typically occurring every two to seven years.

The effect has widespread impacts on weather around the world – typically the opposite impacts to the El Nino warming phase in the Southern Oscillation cycle.

Any development of an El Nino event would immediately fuel temperatures, as it did in 2016, said the WMO.

‘Last chance saloon’

John Sweeney, Emeritus Professor of Geography at Maynooth University, said its incumbent on us to take the WMO warning very seriously as we’re approaching the “last chance saloon” on the climate front.

“We’re on the edge of the climate cliff. The 1.5 degree threshold that we will exceed probably in the next five to 10 years, we will be excceding consistently between 2020 and 2050,” Professor Sweeney told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland.

“That bodes very badly for how we will cope with a sustainable lifestyle, not just in Ireland, but in many parts of the world because 1.5 degrees is the global average.

“For many parts of the world that means three and four degrees of warming. That eliminates food supplies in some parts of the world, it makes intolerable living conditions in other parts of the world.

Even for us in Ireland, it threatens our climatic system and the stability that we’ve had historically from our position on the Atlantic.

Greenhouse gas link

The annual mean global near-surface temperature for each year between 2022 and 2026 is predicted to be between 1.1C and 1.7C higher than pre-industrial levels.

There is only a 10 percent chance of the five-year mean exceeding the 1.5C threshold.

“For as long as we continue to emit greenhouse gases, temperatures will continue to rise,” said Taalas.

“And alongside that, our oceans will continue to become warmer and more acidic, sea ice and glaciers will continue to melt, sea level will continue to rise and our weather will become more extreme.

“Arctic warming is disproportionately high and what happens in the Arctic affects all of us.”

Meanwhile, predicted precipitation patterns for 2022, compared to the 1991-2020 average, suggest an increased chance of drier conditions over southwestern Europe and southwestern North America, and wetter conditions in northern Europe, the Sahel, northeastern Brazil, and Australia.

© AFP 2022

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    Mute in_zane_burger
    Favourite in_zane_burger
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    Apr 2nd 2014, 3:06 PM

    Can I have my money back now

    32
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    Mute padser123
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    Apr 2nd 2014, 3:33 PM

    It’s like’…..burning your furniture – to keep warm!

    23
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    Mute Paul Roche
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    Apr 2nd 2014, 4:52 PM

    Why are PwC saying this instead of IBRC and NAMA?

    11
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    Mute Philip
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    Apr 2nd 2014, 5:20 PM

    As property prices start to rise nama , ibrc start to dump property

    Can someone explain why?

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    Mute Dara O'Brien
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    Apr 2nd 2014, 5:56 PM

    Dumping loans philip, not property. They’re Dumping the loans as they’re non-performing and want to get them off the balance sheet.

    If they had the patience, they’d put arrangements in place to allow the properties to return to positive equity and then seek a sale, this recouping more of the tax payers money.

    Unfortunately, they’ll sell the loans for a discount and allow the new purchasers to do this and net a tidy profit.

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    Mute Garry Coll
    Favourite Garry Coll
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    Apr 2nd 2014, 5:02 PM

    The article outlines that IBRC (IBROKE would probably be a better name) will offload € 15 billion in loans.
    Yet the linked article tells us that IBROKE have already offloaded 90% of its loanbook, € 19.8 billion out of € 21.7 billion leaving just € 1.9 billion on hand.
    This can only mean, if the previous article is correct, that it is NAMA that is offloading the majority of the loans.
    Why the subterfuge?
    Why make people think that this is some kind of joint enterprise when it is NAMA that is leading the charge?
    Have the shiny suit brigade from the canal something to hide?
    Given their obsession with secrecy it would not surprise me if they have, perhaps selling the loans to some preferred customer with an inside track at a serious discount.
    The way things go it will all be wrapped up before we know anything, plus ça change.

    9
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    Mute Irish Revolution
    Favourite Irish Revolution
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    Apr 2nd 2014, 2:58 PM

    Who in their right mind would buy this junk?

    3
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    Mute Padraig McHale
    Favourite Padraig McHale
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    Apr 2nd 2014, 3:01 PM

    It might only be worth 30% of face value but if you buy it for 20% it’s a good deal. For the buyer anyway.

    32
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    Mute Tony
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    Apr 2nd 2014, 3:06 PM

    @ Irish Revolution

    The Banks?

    14
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    Mute Deirdre McDonnell
    Favourite Deirdre McDonnell
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    Apr 3rd 2014, 2:42 AM

    Hedge funds bought it. They will now sell off all the ghost estates etc at a lower price so people that have houses for sale at the min will eventually have to sell for half or take them off the market.
    Fab house here in drogheda asking price €325. Hilarious. You could now nearly get a house for that on raglan road or ailsbury road!! So that house is realistically worth less than €150 really.
    People and notions ha

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    Mute Vanessa Doyle
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    Apr 2nd 2014, 7:04 PM

    What about Bank of Scotland selling on my mortgage & others in their Irish portfolio to a company called Tanager Ltd.
    I’m in a tizzy all day because I don’t know what it means for us.

    3
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