No, climate science isn’t wrong, and yes, global warming is real

Japanese industrial facilities at night

Kicking old habits is just too hard

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THE Paris Agreement aspires to limit global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. But is this target at all realistic?

Climate scientists had estimated that this means we can emit no more than 70 gigatonnes of carbon (GtC) after 2015. At current emission rates, we will pass this threshold by 2022.

Now, a study is claiming that we can emit 200 GtC – nearly three times as much, pushing the deadline back to 2035. “Keeping to 1.5 [degrees] just went from impossible to very difficult,” says team member Joeri Rogelj at

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