By Hannah Hickey / UW News
The United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, this week released a new document that looks at the impacts of global warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 F) above preindustrial levels. That was the more ambitious goal established by governments in late 2015 through the Paris Agreement on climate. Governments committed to keeping the planet’s temperature from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 F) above preindustrial levels, but to aim for a change no greater than 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Kristie Ebi, a University of Washington professor of global health and of environmental and occupational health sciences, was a lead author on the document approved Oct. 8. The IPCC “Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 C,” compares the effects of 1.5 versus 2 degrees Celsius global warming, the possible consequences of those temperature shifts for human and natural systems, and the changes needed to meet those two targets.