Keeping long-term global warming to two degrees Celsius – the backup target of the Paris climate agreement – is now “impossible”, according to a brand new analysis published by leading scientists. The work, led by renowned climatologist James Hansen, appears in the journal Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development and concludes that the Earth's climate is more sensitive to increasing greenhouse gas emissions than previously thought.

Hansen and colleagues argued that the crisis was compounded by a recent decline in sun-blocking aerosol pollution from the shipping industry, which was moderating some of the warming.

The ambitious climate change scenario outlined by the UN climate panel, which gives the planet a 50 percent chance of keeping warming below 2°C by 2100, “is an unlikely scenario,” Hansen said at a briefing on Tuesday.

“This scenario is now impossible,” said Hansen, a former top NASA climate scientist who famously told the U.S. Congress in 1988 that global warming was underway.

"The two-degree goal is dead." (More on phys.org)