"Holding Warming Under Two Degrees C Is the Goal." Is It Attainable?

"Getting the world’s governments to reach a global agreement at the United Nations’ climate conference in Paris is going to require careful politics, but the effort may be up against an even tougher challenge: mathematics.

The central goal of the gathering is to forge an agreement that would set the world on a path to ultimately restrict planetary warming to less than two degrees Celsius above preindustrial temperatures. The target was originally proposed by the European Union in the 1990s as a way to avert some of the worst consequences of climate change, such as rising sea levels.

But as ambitious as this effort is, time and numbers are working against it. Some scientists and analysts now suggest the two-degree target may be all but out of reach. The world has waited so long to cut emissions, they say, that sticking to two degrees may require extremely harsh cuts that could damage economies, or the assumption of future technologies that have not been invented yet."

Chris Mooney reports for the Washington Post November 29, 2015.