New research by a South Coast economist is finding that it’s unlikely that global temperatures goals laid out in the Paris Climate Agreement will be achieved.
The goal in the agreement is to limit temperature rise by the year 2100 to two degrees Celsius, which amounts to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit.
UC Santa Barbara economics professor Dick Startz and his colleagues created a high-tech statistical model that looked at every country.
“What was happening to their carbon intensity, that is, how much carbon dioxide is emitted compared to the size of the economy. We looked at how fast per capita GDP was growing and how fast population was growing and included uncertainty measures in all of these. And the news is not very good,” he said.
The researchers found that temperatures over the next 80 years will likely increase by 3.2 degrees Celsius, which is about six degrees Fahrenheit. Even at the rate at which carbon emissions have been decreasing in recent years, the model still comes up short.