Almost 80% of the respondents, all from the authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), foresee at least 2.5C of global heating, while almost half anticipate at least 3C (5.4F). Only 6% thought the internationally agreed 1.5C (2.7F) limit would be met...
About a quarter of the IPCC experts who responded thought global temperature rise would be kept to 2C or below but even they tempered their hopes. 'I am convinced that we have all the solutions needed for a 1.5C path and that we will implement them in the coming 20 years,' said Henry Neufeldt, at the UN’s Copenhagen Climate Centre. 'But I fear that our actions might come too late and we cross one or several tipping points.'
And from their editorial in the same issue, "Scientists also noted that young people care more about the crisis and appear more willing to make lifestyle changes to address it. And in moments of despair, said one expert, Henri Waisman, two things help: “Remembering how much progress has happened since I started to work on the topic in 2005 and that every tenth of a degree matters a lot – this means it is still useful to continue the fight... It is not only useful; it is essential. Individual actions can seem futile given the magnitude of the task. But they can also build collective awareness, a sense that change is possible and momentum for wider systemic progress. Just as climate tipping points exist, so do social tipping points. It is imperative to hit the latter as fast as we possibly can."
We need the government's help to not only address climate change faster but also to help us blast past some of those social tipping points. Conversations need to continue to happen at every level, and we need to introduce more tools, like Climate Action Dashboards as noted by the Carbon Almanac to help us advance the conversation beyond the social tipping points, so we can implement the solutions, equitably, and faster than ever before.