20 September, 2019

The human imperative of stabilising global climate change at 1.5°C

Authors

O. Hoegh-Guldberg, D. Jacob, M. Taylor, T. Guillén Bolaños, M. Bindi, S. Brown, I. A. Camilloni, A. Diedhiou, R. Djalante, K. Ebi, F. Engelbrecht, J. Guiot, Y. Hijioka, S. Mehrotra, C. W. Hope, A. J. Payne, H.-O. Pörtner, S. I. Seneviratne, Adelle Thomas, R. Warren, G. Zhou

First published

Reef-building corals can bleach and die, a nonlinear response to impacts/risks from climate change.

The need to stabilise global climate

Climate change will be the greatest threat to humanity and global ecosystems in the coming years, and there is a pressing need to understand and communicate the impacts of warming, across the perspectives of the natural and social sciences.

Hoegh-Guldberg et al. review the climate change–impact literature, expanding on the recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

They provide evidence of the impacts of warming at 1°, 1.5°, and 2°C—and higher—for the physical system, ecosystems, agriculture, and human livelihoods.

The benefits of limiting climate change to no more than 1.5°C above preindustrial levels would outweigh the costs.

Publications

Latest science on the 1.5°C limit of the Paris Agreement

This briefing provides a comprehensive overview of what the science is saying now about the 1.5°C warming limit – what it means, what is at stake, and what actions are needed to limit the risks of overshoot and safeguard a liveable future.

The full implications of Australia's North West Shelf decision

On 28 May 2025, Australian Environment Minister Murray Watt made the first step towards what looks set to be a final decision to approve Woodside Energy's North West Shelf LNG plant in Western Australia through to 2070.

Climate overshoot implications for local adaptation planning

New perspective piece argues climate overshoot – the temporary exceedance of the 1.5°C limit of the Paris Agreement – may not be relevant for short-term adaptation planning, but it should be considered for long-term plans and policies, such as infrastructure-based measures and for irreversible impacts such as sea-level rise.

Addressing challenges in the land sector under the Paris Agreement

This report examines how loose land-sector rules under the Paris Agreement enable countries to overstate carbon removals and delay essential fossil fuel emissions cuts.

Fair carbon removal obligations under climate response uncertainty

We assess the level of ‘preventive’ CDR needed to draw warming down to 1.5°C in case of a stronger-than-average Earth System response.

Reversal of the impact chain for actionable climate information

This study helps local decision-makers understand the link between the risks they want to avoid (i.e. health-related heat risks) and CO2 emissions using a new method that makes identifying critical risk levels easier for non-scientists.

Humid heat exceeds human tolerance limits and causes mass mortality

With critical physiological limits to human heat tolerance drawing ever closer, this Comment highlights the urgent need to limit further climate warming and emphasises the adaptation challenge ahead.

Spatially resolved emulated annual temperature projections for overshoot pathways

This study presents a new dataset of annual temperature projections for different overshoot pathways (when the 1.5 °C of global warming limit is exceeded). The data offers a unique opportunity to study local and regional climate change impacts of a range of overshoot scenarios, including when temperature thresholds might be exceeded, and by how much.

Geological Net Zero and the need for disaggregated accounting for carbon sinks

This study in Nature show that definitions of net zero now in widespread use will not actually stop global warming. The paper demonstrates that relying on natural carbon sinks, such as in forests or oceans, to 'offset' ongoing fossil fuel emissions will lead to continued warming.

The role of northern forests in limiting warming to 1.5°C

Northern forests are critical in the race to net zero CO₂ by mid-century. Protecting and restoring these forests, alongside steep and rapid reductions in fossil fuel emissions, is essential both to mitigating emissions and to supporting forest ecosystem services and biodiversity.

Rapid urbanisation and climate change key drivers of dramatic flood impacts in Nepal

New study finds the devastating floods in Nepal late September were exacerbated by rapid urbanisation and climate change. The analysis found the relentless rain, which fell on saturated ground in the late monsoon, was made at least 10% heavier and 70% more likely by climate change.

LNG shipbuilding industry heading to huge oversupply

The LNG shipbuilding industry appears to be doubling down on building new carriers, ignoring the global shift to a low carbon economy and putting itself into an even worse oversupply situation than a year ago, we find in our updated report.

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Decarbonisation targets and 1.5℃ pathways

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