Study warns of risk of seeing Paris climate agreement objectives "exceeded"

Will the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement, signed in 2015, be achieved? A study published this Monday, February 10 in the journal Nature Climate Change warns of the risks that "the long-term goal of the Paris Agreement" will be "generally exceeded".

The starting point for the scientists' work is June 2024, which "was the twelfth consecutive month in which the global average surface temperature was at least 1.5°C above pre-industrial conditions." "Twelve months at 1.5°C signals an earlier-than-expected violation of the Paris Agreement threshold," they warn.

"If the 1.5°C anomalies persist beyond 18 months, exceeding the threshold of the Paris Agreement is virtually certain," the scientists warn.

This rise in temperatures is notably linked to climatic phenomena such as El Nino which "contribute to the emergence of short-term excursions above 1.5°C".

This international climate treaty, adopted by countries around the world in 2015, aims to limit global warming to 2°C, and to continue efforts to limit it to 1.5°C. The data that the signatories of the agreement worked on refer to averages over two decades, which the authors of the study did not do because "by definition, this requires information about the future."

And while there are climate models for the future, "there are possible exogenous changes in factors that are not included in the model simulations." As a result, "there is a risk of biased estimates of when the Paris Agreement target will be exceeded," the scientists say.

At the opening of COP29 last November, the UN warned that "the ambitions of the Paris Agreement are in great danger".

Upon his return to the White House on January 20, Donald Trump signed a decree withdrawing the United States from the Paris Agreement, denouncing "an unfair scam." In an interview with Le Point in early February , Argentinian President Javier Milei indicated that he was "considering withdrawing from the Paris Agreement."