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Define limits for temperature overshoot targets

Nature Geoscience volume 10, pages 881–882 (2017)Cite this article

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Temperature overshoot scenarios that make the 1.5 °C climate target feasible could turn into sources of political flexibility. Climate scientists must provide clear constraints on overshoot magnitude, duration and timing, to ensure accountability.

To the surprise of many, achieving consensus between industrialized nations, emerging economies and developing countries did not result in weakening the targets for global climate stabilization at the 21st Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Instead, in Paris in 2015, the previously envisaged target to keep warming “below 2 °C” was tightened to “well below 2 °C”, and supplemented with an aspirational goal of limiting the temperature increase to 1.5 °C.

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Fig. 1: Schematic for policy-relevant parameters of temperature overshoot targets.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), Berlin, Germany

    Oliver Geden

  2. Institute for Science, Innovation and Society, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Oliver Geden

  3. Center for Applied Economic Research (CAWM) at the University of Münster, Münster, Germany

    Andreas Löschel

  4. Institute for New Economic Thinking, Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Andreas Löschel

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  1. Oliver Geden
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  2. Andreas Löschel
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Correspondence to Oliver Geden.

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Geden, O., Löschel, A. Define limits for temperature overshoot targets. Nature Geosci 10, 881–882 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-017-0026-z

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