10, Jan 2018 | CJP Team

An article published on the United Nations’ Climate Change website spotlights a new study in Nature Climate Change, which indicates that “over a quarter of the world’s land will significantly dry up if the earth’s temperature rises by two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels in the next three decades, the upper limit for the global average temperature rise set by nations under the Paris Climate Change Agreement.” According to the article, the study indicates that restricting the global average temperature increase to 1.5ºC “would help avoid large scale aridification in many regions of the world”.  The study’s findings also indicate the worst-case scenario, in which a temperature increase of 2ºC could result in “the desertification of around 30% of the planet’s land.” The article notes that although governments pledged to cut greenhouse gas emissions to restrict the global average temperature increase to under 2ºC, and “as close as possible” to 1.5ºC, 1ºC of that increase has already taken place.