Letter: Hard to swallow a 1.5°C+ world as anything but bad

From Walter Edgar, Glasgow, UK

I was astonished by your comment article “Keeping our cool”. It is subtitled: “Despite pessimism, limiting global warming to well below 2°C is within our grasp.”

The writer states: “And while ‘well below 2°C’ is very much in reach, we are clear the tougher 1.5°C goal no longer appears feasible… And a ‘well-below 2°C’ world won’t be pretty, as social tipping points, including mass movement of people and conflict for resources as vast areas around the equator become effectively uninhabitable, strain global cohesion and economic and political stability.”

So avoiding 2°C of warming is supposed to be good news? Exceeding 1.5°C is the sort of catastrophic situation that climate scientists and others have warned of (2 December, p 21).