Strategies to limit climate change that focus on warming in the next couple of decades would leave less of a burden for future generations.

Research led by Imperial College London and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Austria, suggests a new underpinning logic for strategies that seek to limit climate change. Their new proposal is published today in Nature.

Most strategies seek to limit climate change by the year 2100. The strategies may include tactics such as deployment of new renewable technologies, removing carbon from the atmosphere (through planting trees or new technologies), or mandating energy efficiency targets.

However, by focusing on the year 2100, these strategies are inconsistent with the Paris Agreement climate goal – to keep warming below 2°C, and ideally below 1.5°C, at any time in the future.

Read more at Imperial College London

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