Best case scenario for climate change is now 1.6°C of warming

Humanity’s goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, which has been totemic in climate policy for the past decade, is now almost certainly now out of reach. Limiting warming to 1.6°C has become the best-case scenario for climate action, with the hope of bringing temperatures back to 1.5°C later in the century using technology to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

“1.5°C without overshoot is not attainable,” says Christoph Bertram at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Research in Germany. “You definitely…