Less Than 2 Years Of Planet's Carbon Budget Left To Meet 1.5C Target At Current GHG Output Rates

The planet’s remaining carbon budget to meet the international target of 1.5C has just two years left at the current rate of emissions, scientists have warned, showing how deep into the climate crisis the world has fallen.

Ed - Meaning that it's well under two years, since growth in emission rates have not slowed, are not slowing and in fact, will not slow.

Breaching the target would ramp up the extreme weather already devastating communities around the world. It would also require carbon dioxide to be sucked from the atmosphere in future to restore the stable climate in which the whole of civilisation developed over the past 10,000 years.

The carbon budget is how much planet-heating CO2 can still be emitted by humanity while leaving a reasonable chance that the temperature target is not blown. The latest assessment by leading climate scientists found that in order to achieve a 66% chance of keeping below the 1.5C target, emissions from 2025 onwards must be limited to 80bn tonnes of CO2. That is 80% lower than it was in 2020. Emissions reached a new record high in 2024: at that rate the 80bn tonne budget would be exhausted within two years. Lags in the climate system mean the 1.5C limit, which is measured as a multi-year average, would inevitably be passed a few years later, the scientists said.

Scientists have been warning for some time that breaching the 1.5C limit is increasingly unavoidable as emissions from the burning of fossil fuels continue to rise. The latest analysis shows global emissions would have to plummet towards zero within just a few years to have any decent chance of keeping to the target. That appears extremely unlikely, given that emissions in 2024 rose yet again.

EDIT

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jun/18/only-two-years-left-of-world-carbon-budget-to-meet-15c-target-scientists-warn-climate-crisis