Here’s Some Good News About Climate Change. Really.

Here’s some potentially good news on the climate front. The most aggressive climate goal we have is to keep global temperatures from rising more than 1.5°C above their pre-industrial average. The most recent IPCC report suggests that to do this, we need to limit total future carbon emissions to about 250 billion tonnes of CO2 (GtCO2). This is all but impossible.

However, a team that includes some of the world’s leading experts on carbon budgets has published a new paper that resolves some contradictions in the IPCC figures and comes up with a much higher carbon budget: about 900 Gt. The following chart will make you cringe at first sight, but don’t worry. It’s fairly easy to explain.

On the left is the IPCC approach. It starts at 1870 and shows how much carbon is required to reach different temperatures. The intersection of the dotted lines indicates that temperatures will rise 1.5°C from 1870 when cumulative carbon emissions hit 2,150 Gt. Since we’ve already emitted 1,900 Gt, that means we have only about 250 Gt to go.

However, this approach doesn’t really match what we see happening right now, so the authors of the new study took a different approach: they started at 2015 instead. Since temperatures have already risen 0.9°C since 1870, our new target is to keep further increases below 0.6°C.

That’s what the chart on the right shows. The intersection of the dotted lines indicates that temperatures will rise 0.6°C from 2015 when we’ve emitted an additional 900 Gt of carbon. The good news here is that this is achievable. It’s not easily achievable, but it’s certainly not impossible.

For more detail on this, Glen Peters has you covered here. He warns that the real-life carbon budget for staying under 1.5°C is probably lower than the theoretical estimate, and he also has some warnings about the whole concept of carbon budgets in general. This is primarily because multiple studies have come up with vastly different estimates of how much carbon we can afford to emit this century if we want to stay below 1.5°C. It’s better, he argues, to simply say that “we need net-zero emissions by 2050 to 2100, as specified in the Paris Agreement.”

Nonetheless, he also says, “The implications of this paper are breathtaking.” As always, this is only one paper, so don’t take it to the bank yet. But this is serious work by leading experts. If it pans out, it means that we actually have a shot at staying below 1.5°C.

WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

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