- Phillies win thriller to level Mets series
- Yu bags first PGA Tour win with playoff win
- PSG held by Nice to leave Monaco clear at top of Ligue 1
- AC Milan fall at Fiorentina after De Gea's penalty heroics
- Lewandowski treble for leaders Barca as Atletico held
- Fresh Israeli strikes hit south Beirut
- Sucic stunner earns Real Sociedad draw against Atletico
- PSG draw with Nice, fail to reclaim top spot in Ligue 1
- Gudmundsson downs AC Milan after De Gea's penalty heroics for Fiorentina
- 'Yes' vote prevails in Kazakhstan nuclear plant vote: TV
- 'Difficult day': Oct 7 commemorations begin with festival memorial
- Commemorations begin for anniversary of attack on Israel
- Lewandowski hat-trick powers Liga leaders Barca to Alaves victory
- 'Nothing gets in way of team,' says Celtics' MVP hopeful Tatum
- India maintain Pakistan stranglehold as Windies cruise at Women's T20 World Cup
- 'We will win!': Mozambique's ruling party confident at final vote rally
- Tunisia voting ends as Saied eyes re-election with critics behind bars
- Florida braces for Milton, FEMA head slams 'dangerous' Helene misinformation
- Postecoglou slams 'unacceptable' Spurs after 'terrible' loss at Brighton
- Marmoush double denies Bayern outright Bundesliga top spot
- Rallies worldwide call for Gaza, Lebanon ceasefire
- Maresca hails Chelsea's 'fighting' spirit after draw with 10-man Forest
- New 'Joker' film, a dark musical, tops N.America box office
- Man Utd stalemate keeps Ten Hag in danger, Spurs rocked by Brighton
- Drowned by hurricane, remote N.Carolina towns now struggle for water
- Vikings hold off Jets in London to stay unbeaten
- Ahead of attack anniversary, Netanyahu says: 'We will win'
- West Indies cruise to T20 World Cup win over Scotland
- Arshdeep, Chakravarthy help India hammer Bangladesh in T20 opener
- Lewandowski's quickfire hat-trick powers Liga leaders Barca to Alaves victory
- Man Utd fire another blank in Aston Villa stalemate
- Lewandowski treble powers Liga leaders Barca to Alaves victory
- Russian activist killed on front line in Ukraine
- Openda strike briefly sends Leipzig top of Bundesliga
- Goal-shy Man Utd have to 'step up', says Ten Hag
- India bowl out Bangladesh for 127 in T20 opener
- Madueke rescues Chelsea in draw with 10-man Forest
- Beckett's belief rewarded as Bluestocking storms to Arc glory
- Trump on the stump, Harris hits airwaves in razor-edge US election
- Flash flooding kills three in northern Thailand
- Kaur leads India to victory over Pakistan in Women's T20 World Cup
- Juventus held by Cagliari after late penalty drama
- In France's Marseille, teen 'stabbed 50 times' then burned alive
- Ruthless Gauff beats Muchova in straight sets to win China Open
- India restrict Pakistan to 105-8 in Women's T20 World Cup
- England target repeat of Pakistan Test whitewash
- Penrith Panthers win fourth straight NRL title after downing Storm
- Weary Sinner happy for day off after battling into Shanghai last 16
- Pakistan's Masood warns England still a force without Stokes
- Madrid's Carvajal to miss several months after serious knee injury
World's available CO2 'budget' for 1.5C smaller than thought: study
The amount of CO2 the world can emit and still limit warming to 1.5C is much smaller than previously thought and could be used up in six years at current pollution levels, according to research published on Monday.
Scientists said the revised "carbon budget" meant that humanity was now more likely than not to blow past the Paris Agreement's safer temperature threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius since the preindustrial era.
"The window to avoid 1.5 degrees of warming is shrinking, both because we continue to emit and because of our improved understanding of atmospheric physics," said lead author Robin Lamboll, of Imperial College London.
But with climate impacts magnifying as warming increases, the researchers stressed that the findings make every fraction of a degree worth fighting for.
"It's not that the fight against climate change will be lost after six years," Lamboll said, adding however that if there was not a "strong downward trajectory" by then, it would be too late for that 1.5 degree limit.
The most recent reports from the UN's IPCC climate expert panel said to keep 1.5C in play the world had a carbon budget of some 500 gigatons, from 2020, warning that emissions would need to be slashed in half by 2030.
This new assessment, which focuses on the main greenhouse gas CO2, calculated that the budget has now dwindled to 250 gigatons, measured from the beginning of 2023.
The study, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, was presented as an update to the IPCC figures, incorporating new expectations for the role of other pollutants, particularly the cooling impacts of aerosols -- emitted with planet-heating fossil fuels.
Meanwhile emissions remain stubbornly high, despite a slight dip at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, and are around 40 gigatons a year.
The findings come a month ahead of crucial UN climate negotiations in the United Arab Emirates, tasked with salvaging the Paris deal goals after the latest round of reports from the IPCC made clear that the world was far off track.
Co-author Joeri Rogelj, also of Imperial College London, said that high-likelihood options for limiting warming to 1.5C -- 50 percent or better -- "are gone".
"That doesn't mean that we're spinning out of control to three or four degrees, but it does mean that the best estimates suggest that we will be above 1.5 of global warming," he said.
- Net-zero 2034? -
Earth's average temperature has already risen nearly 1.2C, causing a cascade of deadly and costly weather extremes.
While temperatures this year, boosted by the El Nino weather phenomenon, could average out at 1.5C, the Paris target is measured over a period of decades.
The IPCC has said 1.5C could be passed by the mid-2030s, with scientists warning this could trigger dangerous tipping points in Earth's fragile life support systems.
The Paris deal's main target was to limit warming to "well below" 2C, but with greenhouse gas emissions still at record highs the world is currently on a path to warm 2.4C or more by the end of the century.
Lamboll said the researchers also calculated for 2C as a "last resort" and found the budget for a 50 percent chance of limiting warming to this threshold was 1,220 gigatons.
To improve the odds to 90 percent, the budget falls to 500 gigatons, or around 12 years at current emissions.
The study should make "uncomfortable reading" for policymakers, said a commentary published in Nature Climate Change by Benjamin Sanderson at Norway's Centre for International Climate and Environmental Research, who was not involved in the research.
He said the new carbon budget would mean the world would need to reach "net zero" emissions by 2034, not in the middle of the century as is envisaged in climate policies across the world.
Rogelj said the IPCC had already acknowledged uncertainties in calculating the remaining carbon budget and had given a one in three chance it could be as low as the latest study suggests.
"A one in three chance is far from unexpected, it's like playing Russian roulette with two bullets. Few people will be surprised if someone gets shot with such odds," he said.
M.Fischer--AMWN