| By Zahra Hirji When it comes to the collective goal of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5C, there's been only one acceptable talking point in the runup to the COP28 conference in Dubai. "We need to show that the international community can deliver and send a clear signal that keeps 1.5 within reach," COP28 President Sultan Al Jaber said on Oct. 30. Since then diplomats and policymakers from US Climate Envoy John Kerry to the European Parliament have repeated the same refrain. All of those appeals belie an uncomfortable truth: The planet is now 1.2C warmer compared to the pre-industrial era, and could surpass 1.5C in as soon a decade. For the most part, the gap between how officials discuss 1.5C and the feasibility of hitting it is a feature, not a bug. Climate-talk observers say the messaging is part of a calculated strategy, one that has worked before, to motivate governments and businesses around climate action. But as humanity closes the books on the hottest year on record, it's worth asking whether the strategy is still working — and what might be lost by continuing to embrace it.  A wall at the COP26 Climate Summit in Glasgow in 2021. Photographer: Ben Stansall/AFP/Getty Images Before 1.5C, there was 2C. In 1995, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a report giving a best estimate that a doubling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could warm the planet by 2.5C. The next year, the European Union began pushing for a 2C target — "because it's bigger than one and smaller than three," quips David Victor, a professor studying decarbonization at the University of California at San Diego. Then came 2015's Paris Agreement, in which some 200 countries agreed to limit warming to well below 2C, "with 1.5C as a sort of high-ambition target," says Kate Marvel, a senior climate scientist at the nonprofit Project Drawdown. 1.5C has since become synonymous with the accord. The thinking was that it would "be motivating," Marvel says. There was just one problem. Few policymakers, and no one in the general public, really knew what a 1.5C world looked like, what it would take to get there, or whether the difference between 1.5C and 2C was truly significant. So the parties of the Paris Agreement asked the IPCC to investigate. The resulting report, published in October 2018, detailed for the first time the stakes of an additional half a degree of warming. 1.5C was by no means deemed "safe" — say goodbye to most coral reefs — but the report made clear that it would be much better than a 2C alternative.  A climate activist demonstrates outside a plenary session at COP26. Photographer: Andy Buchanan/AFP/Getty Images Practically overnight, 1.5C became a rallying cry for everyone from youth climate activists to developing nations, all of whom used it to emphasize the need for greater, faster climate action. It also added to the fears of the possibility of missing 1.5C, a weight that could be demotivating: If we go over 1.5C, we might as well give up hope. Technically speaking, 1.5C isn't dead yet. But any road to 1.5C calls for every country to bring its emissions to net zero as soon as possible. The odds are exceedingly long. IPCC scientists concluded that even if countries achieved the most dramatic emissions reductions possible, "it is more likely than not" that 1.5C is breached in the coming decades before temperatures come back down. Being more honest about 1.5C might help the public better understand the current state of warming, and the real stakes of what comes next.  Outside the Blue Zone at the COP28 climate conference in Dubai. Photographer: Hollie Adams/Bloomberg COP28 in Dubai will include the first-ever global "stocktake," a rigorous review of how country-level climate efforts are stacking up against Paris goals. The process, intended to inform the next round of national climate pledges due in 2025, is sure to highlight how few countries are moving as quickly or aggressively as is needed to keep 1.5C within the realm of reality. What the stocktake won't do, however, is compare that limited headway to what it might have been without the Paris deal. Back in 2015, just before the Paris Agreement was struck, the UN estimated that even if the most ambitious country-level climate goals were met, the planet had a 66% chance of warming between 3C and 3.5C by 2100. Fast forward to last week, when the UN released the latest version of the same report. It found that if all national-level goals are met, the world will likely warm between 2.5C and 2.9C by 2100. "That's a huge change," Gross says. "Is it everything we want? No. Is it better? Oh hell yes." Click here to read the full version of this story as it appears on Bloomberg.com. | 
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