THE SAGA OF LIMITING THE SCOURGE

After having discussed at length the details of all the major climate conferences, the Climate Change Series will now offer a glimpse of the efforts made at avoiding CO2 emissions or sequestering the same, alongside other adaptation and mitigation measures

- KRISHNA GUPTA

In the Climate Change series, I have chronicled various discussions held from the first conference in Bonn to the 28th conference in Dubai. I have discussed the victories such as the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement and also the disappointments such as inadequate climate finance and insufficient transfer of technology. Be that as it may, our track record in meeting the global warming targets under Paris Agreement are looking increasingly challenging: the average global temperature is already 1.1 degrees Celsius warmer as compared to the pre-industrial levels. Keeping it within 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2050 looks unlikely. Even the 2 degrees Celsius target is looking very difficult. The other metric of parts per million of carbon dioxide is also not giving us a happy picture. The redline of 400 ppm of CO2, prescribed by IPCC has also been crossed; we are now at 411 ppm of CO2.