October 27, 2023, 3:03 am
Since negotiation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (1992), the goal of international climate governance has been to avoid "dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system." That goal has come to be defined in terms of limiting temperature increase to no more than 1.5°C. Today we are teetering on the brink of passing this threshold. So far in 2023, temperatures have reached 1.5℃ above pre-industrial levels about one third of the time. In response, the international community is beginning to ask how we can manage this period of "overshoot" and work toward bringing temperatures back down.
The Climate Overshoot Commission is a group of world leaders that was tasked by the Paris Peace Forum with the goal of recommending a comprehensive strategy to limit harms during the period of overshoot beyond agreed warming goals. Last month, the Commission released its final report in which it makes recommendations concerning the potential role of four kinds of responses to climate overshoot: cutting emissions to mitigate warming; adapting to the changing climate; removing carbon that is already in the atmosphere or ocean; exploring interventions to limit warming by intentionally reflecting sunlight into space. In this talk, Dr Jonathan Symons examines the international political controversies associated with these four possible climate responses, and asks how global climate politics is changing in the lead-up to COP28 (UAE).
Content Creator – Australian Institute of International Affairs
