WIKIMEDIA, HARALD ZIMMERIf global warming is kept in check, with only a 1.5 °C increase in temperatures by the end of the century, a vast majority of plants and animals will be spared extinction, researchers report today (May 17) in Science.
“We found that achieving the ultimate goal of the Paris Agreement, to limit warming to 1.5° C above pre-industrial levels, would reap enormous benefits for biodiversity—much more so than limiting warming to 2 °C,” study coauthor Rachel Warren of the University of East Anglia says in a statement.
In the study, Warren and her colleagues looked at the effects of rising temperatures on roughly 115,000 species and counted how many would lose more than half their geographic habitat as a result of different global warming scenarios. The team found that limiting global air temperature increases to only 1.5 °C would “avoid half the risks associated with warming of 2 °C for plants and animals, and two thirds of the risks for insects,” according to the ...
