{"id":167365,"date":"2024-06-24T16:29:58","date_gmt":"2024-06-24T06:29:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.climatecouncil.org.au\/?post_type=resource&p=167365"},"modified":"2025-07-23T06:23:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-22T20:23:12","slug":"have-we-already-gone-past-1-5-degrees-warming","status":"publish","type":"resource","link":"https:\/\/www.climatecouncil.org.au\/resources\/have-we-already-gone-past-1-5-degrees-warming\/","title":{"rendered":"Have we already gone past 1.5 degrees of warming?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Updated information available in: Stronger Target, Safer Future: Why Australia\u2019s 2035 Climate Target Matters<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

2023 was the hottest year ever recorded.<\/a> In the months of July and August, temperatures reached 1.6\u00b0C above pre-industrial levels of warming. This news creates a lot of confusion about whether or not this means we\u2019ve collectively failed to honour the international treaty on climate signed by almost 200 countries in 2015 known as the Paris Agreement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s break down what it all means and set the record straight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why is 1.5\u00b0C of global warming so dangerous?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

There is no safe level of global warming. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By digging up and burning coal, oil and gas we have profoundly altered the Earth\u2019s carbon cycle by drawing huge quantities of carbon out of long-term underground storage and pumping it into our atmosphere. This has tipped our Earth System out of balance and blanketed the planet in pollution that traps heat inside our atmosphere. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our global temperature is now rising faster than anything we have seen over the Earth\u2019s entire history.<\/strong> Around the planet, we are dealing with more dangerous, unpredictable and more frequent extreme weather events like bushfires, flooding rains, heatwaves and droughts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n