14 May 2022 | New Scientist | 7News
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THE UK Met Office has
warned there is an almost
50-50 chance the world will
briefly overshoot its crucial
1.5°C climate change target
within the next five years.
The Paris Agreement
set an aim to limit global
warming to 1.5°C above
pre-industrial levels, a
threshold seen as vital to
limiting the worst impacts
of global warming on people
and ecosystems. That aim
would only be missed if a
temperature rise is sustained
over a couple of decades.
The Met Office’s climate
models estimate there is a
48 per cent chance that the
average global temperature
of any year between 2022
and 2026 will be more than
1.5°C above pre-industrial
levels. For the previous
five-year period, 2017
to 2021, the chance was
less than 10 per cent.
The prediction shows how
close the world is to failing
on its climate goals. “One
year’s exceedance doesn’t
mean anything; it just means
that we’re getting closer and
it’s a warning that we need
to really double up on the
efforts to cut carbon dioxide
and reduce our use of fossil
fuels,” says Leon Hermanson
at the Met Office, part of the
team behind the report,
Global Annual to Decadal
Climate Update, made for the
UN’s World Meteorological
Organization.
The report also finds there
is a 93 per cent chance that
one of the next five years
will eclipse 2016 as the
warmest on record. ❚Climate changeWe could exceed
1.5°C by 2026AVTHE Amazon rainforest in Brazil
has suffered its worst-ever April
deforestation rate since 2016,
according to modern satellite
records, months ahead of
a general election where
environmental protections are
expected to be a key dividing line.
The area cleared almost doubled
year-on-year, from 579 square
kilometres in April 2021 to
1012 square kilometres last month.
The losses are “bleak”, tweeted
Tasso Azevedo, the former head
of Brazil’s forest service.
The destruction follows several
years of rising deforestation rates
under President Jair Bolsonaro,
who has argued Brazil has a right
to exploit the forest. Brazil was
responsible for 40 per cent of forestcover loss in the tropics in 2021.
“The continued deforestation
highs are a direct result of
President Bolsonaro’s sabotage of
environmental law enforcement
in Brazil,” says André Freitas at
Greenpeace Brazil. He adds that
only 2 per cent of deforestation
alerts have been investigated
by authorities in recent years.
Mark Parrington at the European
Earth observation programme
Copernicus says satellites detected
above-average fire emissions
in late April, the start of the peak
deforestation “season”. “If it
follows the typical seasonal trend
in daily emissions, it could be one
of the highest April to May totals
for quite a few years,” he adds.
The accelerated pace ofdeforestation comes despite
Brazil having promised to halt
deforestation by 2030 in a high-
profile pledge made at 2021’s
COP26 climate summit.But the deforestation figures
should be treated with some
caution as they come from the
Brazilian space agency’s DETER
satellite programme. This is a
relatively low-resolution system
designed to help authorities
discover illegal forest clearances,
compared with one that tracks
annual changes to forest cover. ❚Lax law enforcement has allowed huge numbers of trees to be
cut down in the Brazilian rainforest, reports Adam VaughanAmazon deforestation
Environment“ The deforestation highs
are a direct result of
President Bolsonaro’s
sabotage of protections”