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Environment

What you need to know about the big UN climate report out this week

By Michael Le Page

5 October 2018 Last updated 8 October 2018

1.5 degrees sign — Our warming world
REUTERS/Charles Platiau

Why is this report coming out now?
When the Paris climate agreement was being negotiated in 2015, island nations facing obliteration from rising seas demanded swifter action. To get them on board, countries agreed not just to try to limit warming to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels, but also “to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels”.

That seems reasonable
It actually took climate scientists by surprise, given that the world had already warmed by 1°C and that no countries were proposing to do…

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