In December 2015, the Paris Agreement on climate change set 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius) of warming above pre-industrial levels as a key target for limiting the negative consequences of human-caused climate change. Now, a new report suggests annual global temperatures could breach that threshold for the first time within the next five years, report Nadine Achoui-Lesage and Frank Jordans for the Associated Press.

There is roughly a 20 percent chance that one of the next five years will see Earth’s yearly average rise to at least 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit higher than pre-industrial levels, according to the report issued by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The odds of striking this grim milestone of climate change in the next five years will “increase with time,” the report specifies, adding that there is a 70 percent chance that one or more months in the next five years will crest 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit.

As Brad Plumer and Nadja Popovich reported for the New York Times in 2018, global average temperatures 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit above pre-industrial levels would expose an additional 350 million people to severe drought. By 2100, 31 to 69 million additional people would be subject to flooding from sea level rise. Meanwhile, coral reefs would experience mass mortality events similar to those seen recently on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef “very frequently.” At an increase of 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, these predictions become even more dire.

Interesting animated graph.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1211631520760221696

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/earth-could-hit-key-climate-threshold-next-five-years-180975290/