Climate Policy After 2C

One year ago, the IPCC’s released its SR15 report, which has focused public debate and activism upon demands to stabilize global temperatures at 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. Ironically, these demands come at a moment at which it is increasingly clear that limiting warming to 2C will be extremely challenging, much less 1.5C. What would a more realistic agenda for climate mitigation and adaptation look like? What moral hazards might be associated with the continuing insistence that implausible emissions and temperature targets are realistic? How best can global policy-makers manage climate risk for a future that is likely to be much hotter than the present, even if human societies undertake ambitious mitigation efforts.

Speaker: Ted Nordhaus