Greenhouse gas emissions are at a historic global high, even though reducing them would save money and improve people's wellbeing, say Austrian researchers. Climate protection is compatible with "wellbeing for all".

To limit global warming to 1.5 degrees, emissions would need to peak by 2025 at the latest and then begin to fall, researchers commented at a webinar organised by the Climate Change Centre Austria (CCCA) on the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Since the previous IPCC report (2010), global emissions have risen by twelve per cent, and by as much as 50 per cent since the 1990s, said Keywan Riahi from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Laxenburg near Vienna.

More than 3,000 emissions scenarios for the current report had shown that "rapid and deep emissions reductions are needed across all sectors". To keep warming below two degrees Celsius, greenhouse gas emissions would need to fall by 27 per cent by 2030, and by 40 per cent for a maximum of 1.5 degrees...

More on this at: science.orf.at