October 28, 2021

How can the world meet the Paris pledges?

In Paris 2015, world governments agreed to keep the increase in mean global temperature to well below 2C above pre-industrial levels and preferably under 1.5C.

Six years later, how can the world meet those goals?  How far have we come since 2015 and what is the scale of the task ahead?  What are the specific targets we need to hit, and which are the crucial sectors that need decarbonising?  And with only days to go before COP26 begins, what do the world’s governments need to do to ensure the Paris Agreement remains attainable? 

Five senior scientists with expertise in climate change and GHG emissions laid out their views and took journalists’ questions.

Speakers included:

Dr Joeri Rogelj, Director of Research and Lecturer in Climate Change and the Environment at the Grantham Institute, Imperial College London

Prof Piers Forster, Professor of Climate Physics and Director of the Priestley International Centre for Climate at the University of Leeds

Prof Corinne Le Quéré FRS, Royal Society Professor of Climate Change Science, University of East Anglia

Prof Pete Smith FRS, Professor of Soils & Global Change, University of Aberdeen

Prof Chuks Okereke, Director of the Center for Climate Change and Development at Alex Ekweme Federal University Nigeria, and Visiting Professor at the University of Reading