Nations grapple with loss of 1.5 deg C target at UN climate summit
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Antalya –
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Nations → grapple → summit
For a decade, the 1.5 deg C goal has served as the north star of climate action, a line nations pledged to hold to avoid the worst ravages of a warming planet.
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nations → serve → planet
But at the 2026 global climate conference – the first since the United Nations said the 1.5 deg C threshold would be missed – nations appear unsure how to take the news.
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nations → say → news
The world has already warmed about 1.4 deg C above pre-industrial times and the UN declared in September that crossing 1.5 deg C – the most ambitious target threshold of the Paris accord – was imminent and unavoidable.
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crossing → warm → accord
Yet in Turkey, where the COP31 negotiations are at the midway point, some nations are clinging to the goal, particularly those on the front lines of the climate crisis.
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nations → cling → crisis
Palau President Surangel Whipps Jr, whose Pacific island nation is threatened by rising seas, said 1.5 deg C was not “an abstract target”.
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C → threaten → seas
“It is an existential threat to our food, our economies and sovereignty,” he said in Antalya.
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he → say → Antalya
Some countries want a final deal at COP31 to affirm that 1.5 deg C remains the “right goal”, according to a summary of negotiating positions released by Australia, which is chairing the talks.
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which → want → talks
There is also a push for language about returning to 1.5C “as soon as possible” and that global temperatures are “still able” to be lowered once exceeding the threshold.
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temperatures → be → threshold
In private, some negotiators are sceptical but reluctant to abandon a target seen as essential to driving the fastest possible cuts in planet-heating greenhouse gas emissions.
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negotiators → abandon → emissions
Others are spying an opportunity to jettison 1.5 deg C, said several observers of the ongoing closed-door climate negotiations.
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observers → spy → negotiations
This includes the Arab Group and Like-Minded Developing Countries – two negotiating blocs of emerging economies including Saudi Arabia and India, the sources said.
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sources → include → Arabia
One senior delegate from a Western nation warned of a “potential backsliding” in climate action should those efforts succeed at COP31.
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efforts → warn → COP31
Jasper Inventor, head of Greenpeace’s delegation in Antalya, said some developing nations worried “a stronger reference” to 1.5 deg C could mean greater pressure to cut emissions without extra financial help.
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reference → say → help
Among the wish-list of negotiating priorities released on Nov 12, some nations urged a rejection of “grey literature” – an oblique reference seen as a possible swipe at the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).
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nations → release → Programme
In September, UNEP published a first-of-its-kind study into “overshoot” scenarios, exploring how the world might possibly bring global temperatures back down to 1.5 deg C by 2100 once the threshold is breached.
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threshold → publish → 2100
At COP31, outgoing UN chief Antonio Guterres – who spent his decade in office rallying nations behind 1.5 deg C – said any overshoot must be “as small as possible for as short a time as possible”.
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overshoot → spend → time
Under the Paris agreement, nearly 200 nations agreed to keep warming “well below” 2 deg C while pursuing efforts to limit it to 1.5 deg C.
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nations → agree → C.
But as scientific evidence mounted in the years after the accord, the lower threshold took on ever greater urgency.
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threshold → mount → urgency
Beyond 1.5 deg C, scientists say, the risks of global warming rise sharply – from more severe floods and heatwaves to irreversible changes to the planet like the permanent loss of coral reefs.
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risks → say → reefs
But the idea that warming can be reversed to 1.5 deg C is uncertain, said Pierre Friedlingstein, a climate scientist from the University of Exeter and lead author of the benchmark Global Carbon Budget study.
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Friedlingstein → reverse → study
To get there, emissions must fall rapidly while carbon is removed from the atmosphere through natural means – such as planting trees and restoring wetlands – or emerging technologies.
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carbon → get → wetlands
“A massive roll-out of these new technologies” would be required at enormous scale over decades, said Friedlingstein.
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Friedlingstein → require → decades
“It is not something I would call utopian but it is certainly extremely ambitious,” he said.
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he → call → ?
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