• The Long Hot Summer of 2018 A month's vacation at the end of summer allowed all the reactions to the new records of heat to invoke a new sense of urgency.

PDF of The Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C (SR15) was published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on 8 October 2018.[1] The report, approved in Incheon, South Korea, includes over 6,000 scientific references, and was prepared by 91 authors from 40 countries.[2] In December 2015, the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference called for the report.[2] The report was delivered at the United Nations' 48th session of the IPCC to “deliver the authoritative, scientific guide for governments” to deal with climate change.[3]

Its key finding is that meeting a 1.5 °C (2.7 °F) target is possible but would require “deep emissions reductions”[4] and “rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society.”[2] Furthermore, the report finds that that “limiting global warming to 1.5 °C compared with 2 °C would reduce challenging impacts on ecosystems, human health and well-being” and that a 2 °C temperature increase would exasperate extreme weather, rising sea levels and diminishing Arctic sea ice, coral bleaching, and loss of ecosystems, among other impacts.[2] SR15 also has modelling that shows that “Global net human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) would need to fall by about 45 percent from 2010 levels by 2030, reaching 'net zero' around 2050.”[2] The reduction of emissions by 2030 and its associated changes and challenges, including rapid decarbonisation, was a key focus on much of the reporting which was repeated through the world.[5][6][7][8][9][10]

• COP 24

• Looking toward 2019