Background
Climate Change and the Battle for 0.5°C
Our earth is getting warmer. Since the beginning of industrialisation in the middle of the 19th century, the average temperature has risen by about 1.2°C until today. If the two-degree limit is exceeded, scientific evidence shows that this will have devastating effects: glaciers will melt, sea levels will rise and entire countries will sink and disappear off the map forever.
In order to halt this fatal development, international climate policy has set itself the goal of limiting global warming to less than 2°C. To achieve this, greenhouse gas emissions worldwide would have to be drastically reduced and eventually even cut to zero. However, the survival of smaller island states is still far from assured by the two-degree target. In international negotiations, they are therefore calling for the limit to be reduced to a maximum of 1.5°C.
The World Climate Conference in Paris marks a decisive turning point in this debate. After days of wrangling over the smallest degree numbers and quibbling over the wording of the treaty, a convention was finally adopted on 12 December 2015: Man-made global warming must be reduced to well below 2°C. To date, as of 2018, all countries worldwide are members of this agreement. Only the USA announced in mid-2017 that it would leave the treaty in 2020, thus once again opening up the desperate struggle for the future of our planet.