1.5C is dead. The climate fight isn’t.

Now that Trump has been re-elected, the goal of preventing global temperatures from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels is dead, nine climate scientists and policy experts told me this week. “There’s virtually no hope” for limiting warming to 1.5 degrees, said Andrew Dessler, a climate scientist at Texas A&M University. “Certainly if there was a smidgeon of hope, yesterday afternoon that was gone.” 1.5 degrees is generally communicated the critical threshold past which the pla

ting global temperatures from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels is dead, nine climate scientists and policy experts told me this week.

“There’s virtually no hope” for limiting warming to 1.5 degrees, said Andrew Dessler, a climate scientist at Texas A&M University. “Certainly if there was a smidgeon of hope, yesterday afternoon that was gone.”

1.5 degrees is generally communicated the critical threshold past which the planet will experience significantly more extreme climate impacts like raging wildfires, droughts, deadly heat, mass coral reef die-offs, sea level rise, and more. However, scientists note that it’s just an estimate; the tipping points could be more or less than 1.5 degrees.

Either way, Trump’s re-election can be seen as “the final nail in the coffin” for the 1.5 degree goal, said Rachel Cleetus, a policy director and economist at the Union for Concerned Scientists.

But that doesn’t mean the fight to preserve a livable climate is over, according to every scientist and policy expert I spoke to post-election. In fact, each one affirmed that every fraction of a degree past 1.5 makes climate disasters more damaging, especially for the most vulnerable countries and communities.

Frontline communities “have continually had to fight for justice, regardless of whatever presidential administration is in power,” said Michael Méndez, an assistant professor of environmental policy at the University of California, Irvine. “We really rely on organizing communities at the local, regional, and state level to have climate action that is achievable.”

“Every fraction of a degree matters,” Cleetus said. “Globally, we have to do everything we can.”

Source: 1.5C is dead. The climate fight isn’t.