The background to 1.5 degrees

Most of us are now familiar with the target of a pre-industrial limit of 1.5 degrees celcius for global warming, but not many people will realise this was first talked about over a decade ago in 2010, when the sixteenth global COP (short for "Conference of the Parties") event was held in Cancun, Mexico, in 2010.

The first COP event (also known as "COP1"), was held in Berlin in 1990 and the most recent, COP26, was held on home turf in Glasgow November 2021.

While COP is great for discussion about climate change at a global level, every country has to agree on the way forward which is a challenge. Because of this, progress has historically been quite slow because not every country will share the same industrial or geopolitical interests, so not all COPs result in satisfactory outcomes. For instance, at COP3 in 1997 in Kyoto, Japan, the EU proposed a reduction in greenhouse gases of 15%, but by the end of the meeting, negotiations between all parties had settled on a reduction of just 5%.

COP16 in Cancun was the first time the target limit of 1.5-2 degrees was discussed. Then in Paris (COP21) in 2015, it was formally agreed we need to keep global warming to an increase of within 2 degrees celsius and ideally aspire to a limit of 1.5 degrees celsius. This has subsequently been dubbed the 'Paris Agreement'.

But all countries need to agree and be committed to the same goals for this to be achieved. It should be stressed that we shouldn’t just be talking about carbon dioxide emissions. When working towards net zero, we should be talking about all greenhouse gases which is why the EU now talks about a target of becoming “climate neutral" by 2050, rather than "carbon neutral" which other countries, such as China, are committing to.