Journal
SUSTAINABILITY
Volume 10, Issue 8, Pages -Publisher
MDPI
DOI: 10.3390/su10082812
Keywords
Paris Agreement; precautionary principle; human rights; climate change; IPCC
Funding
- Leibniz Association within Leibniz Science Campus Phosphorus Research Rostock
- Federal Ministry of Education and Science (BMBF) Project InnoSoilPhos on transdisciplinary Phosphorus Research
- BMBF project BIOACID on transdisciplinary research on ocean acidification
- Leibniz Association
- BMBF
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
- Universitat Rostock/Universitatsmedizin Rostock
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The Paris Agreement of December 2015 is subject to much criticism of being inadequate. This however neglects its very ambitious objective, which limits legally-binding global warming to 1.5 to 1.8 degrees in comparison to pre-industrial levels. This article shows, based on the overlap of unanswered questions for prognoses in natural science and the legal precautionary principle, that this objective indicates a legal imperative towards zero emissions globally within a short timeframe. Furthermore, it becomes apparent that policies need to be focused on achieving the 1.5-degree temperature limit. From a legal standpoint with regard to existential matters, only those policies are justified that are fit to contribute to reaching the temperature limit with high certainty, without overshoot, without leaving the 1.5 limit aside and without geoengineering measures, in contrast to the tendencies of the IPCC. This creates a big challenge even for the alleged forerunners of climate policies, Germany and the EU; because, according to the objective, the EU and Germany have to raise the level of ambition in their climate policies rapidly and drastically.
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