Swift, sharp emission cuts could slow warming ‘within 20 years’

PARIS: Slashing global emissions would result in "substantial" near-term rewards by reducing the risk of unprecedented warming even within the next two decades, according to a new study on Monday.

Most nations have signed up to the landmark Paris agreement goals of limiting global temperature rises to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and the more ambitious target of beneath 1.5C.

Governments are tasked with releasing updates on how they plan to meet these goals by year end, with scientists warning that the world is moving far too slowly to avert climate disaster. In a report published in the journal Nature Climate Change, researchers in Britain, Switzerland and Austria found that while warming targets are often focused on risks and benefits in the longer term -- for instance by the end of the century -- hard and fast cuts to greenhouse gasses could deliver results much sooner. The authors sought to disentangle the effects of man-made warming from cycles in global atmosphere and ocean systems in order to estimate the effects of different emissions cuts.

Researchers used thousands of simulations from different climate models as well as a range of estimates of natural climate variability. If governments put in place measures to hold long-term temperature rises below 1.5 C, the risk of experiencing unprecedented warming rates would be 13 times lower in the next 20 years, compared with a scenario with continuing heavy reliance on fossil fuels.