UN official expresses fears of lower chance of keeping global warming to 1.5C

The new chair of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Jim Skea, has warned that the chances of the world limiting the rise in global temperatures to 1.5C since pre-industrial times are now less than the one-third to one-half predicted in the last landmark report by UN’s climate science body.

The British academic said that the continued rise of greenhouse gas emissions since its 2021 report had reduced the chances of curbing global warming.

Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, almost 200 countries agreed to limit global temperature rises to well below 2C — and ideally to 1.5C.

Carbon dioxide emissions from energy, the biggest contributor to global warming, continued to rise to an all-time high last year, according to the International Energy Agency, and are expected to rise still further this year.