Setting the path towards 1.5°C – CIDSE

Setting the path towards 1.5°C

The civil society appeal on the 1.5°C Goal and the Urgency of Action

The report is available in the attachment below.

We cannot wait until 2020 to take accelerated global action. This short report focuses on the urgent need to increase mitigation ambition. It proceeds by way of a fair-shares analysis of 2020 pledges and support, against a 2020 emissions benchmark that is consistent with a true 1.5°C mobilization. It draws simple but challenging conclusions about the changes that will be needed, before 2020, if we honestly intend to make a just and successful transition to a zero carbon world. Low pre-2020 ambition will deepen the post-2020 challenge in terrible ways, to the detriment of the poor, the vulnerable, future generations, other species, and soon the privileged as well. It will lock in high-carbon infrastructure, prolong our dependence on fossil fuels, and increase the risk that, as climate impacts intensify, future decision makers will resort to damaging and unjust ‘negative emissions’ technologies in desperate attempts to mitigate at least their extremes.

Critically, low pre-2020 ambition will increase the odds that the Paris goals will simply never be met. To deepen the low-carbon transition, wealthy countries must sharply accelerate their domestic shifts to low-carbon economies, while at the same time intensifying cooperation with developing countries to define and drive towards a just future. This means provision of significant technological and financial resources for developing countries, to help them leap frog onto rapid, and extremely challenging, low-carbon development paths.

This transition must start immediately, and its benefits must go to all.

Setting-the-Path-Toward-1.5C.pdf

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