Humanity is running out of time to deal with the climate crisis. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that we need to limit atmospheric carbon dioxide to less than 450 parts per million in order to have a chance to keep average global surface temperatures from rising more than 1.5°C by the end of the century. That’s been identified as the safety margin that would avoid irreversible, adverse climate change effects.
But CO2 levels keep rising, and the amount in the atmosphere topped 415 ppm in 2019. Given current trends in emissions, it seems likely that we will surpass the 450 ppm threshold within 13 to 15 years, according to Klaus Lackner, director of Arizona State University’s Center for Negative Carbon Emissions. Read more in Chemistry World.