If we respect the 1.5 degrees, the climate risk drops by 44%

In climate risk, economic impacts and exposure to malaria and dengue are also calculated

(Sustainabilityenvironment.com) – Limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees instead of 2 ºC decreases climate risk for humans by up to 44%, which is exposure to events such as water scarcity, excessive heat, insect diseases such as mosquitoes, and river and coastal flooding. While the benefits of complying with the lower threshold of the Paris agreement compared to a global warming of 3.66°C – one of the most pessimistic scenarios hypothesized by the IPCC, but still plausible – are almost double: the risks would be reduced by even 85%.

The calculations come from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia. “Our results are important because the goal of the Paris Agreement is to limit global warming to “well below” 2 o’clock and to “pursue efforts” to limit it to 1.5 times C. This means that policymakers must understand the advantages of pointing to the lowest figure,” explains Rachel Warren, before signing the study.

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To quantify climate change risk, researchers in East Anglia used 21 alternative climate models to simulate regional models of climate change corresponding to a warming of 2°C and 1,5°C.

If you compare the two targets set in Paris, the climate risks avoided varying in percentage terms from 10 to 44%. The greatest benefits come from reducing exposure to river floods (-44%) and reducing exposure to drought and crop failure (about -27%). Also, in this case, the exposure of the global population to diseases such as malaria and dengue – carried by mosquitoes whose range expands with the increase in global temperature – would be 10% lower. Not only. “The global economic impact of climate change is 20% lower when warming is limited to 1.5°C rather than 2°C,” reads the study published in Climatic change. The value of the damage caused by climate disasters would be reduced, as a result, from 61,000 to 39,000 billion dollars.