Without immediate emissions cuts, global temperatures will breach the Paris Agreement’s goals sooner than expected, scientists say. ‘Despite decades of warnings, we are still heading in the wrong direction’
Research released this week raises new questions about how much more Earth may warm, or cool, if and when human carbon dioxide emissions zero out. Best estimates to date suggest that the global surface temperature would stabilize within a few decades, but the new paper in the journal Frontiers in Science examines the uncertainties around that conclusion, including how the planet’s key carbon dioxide-absorbing systems, like forests and oceans, will respond.