Roz Pidcock

The cost of allowing global temperature to rise to 2C, rather than capping warming at 1.5C, is an area of permafrost the size of Mexico, according to new research. The study, carried out by a team of scientists from Sweden, Norway and the UK, is the first to work out what the ambitious targets contained in the Paris Agreement mean for permafrost loss.

A recent study suggesting that human-caused climate change brought benefits in the 20th century offers a good starting point to explore a few of the issues that surround this fraught, complex topic.

Replacing traditional wood and coal-burning cookstoves with cleaner technology could trim nearly a tenth of a degree from global temperature and save more than 10 million lives by 2050.

Limiting global temperature rise to 1.5C has long been the goal of developing countries and those most at risk from climate change. Since becoming enshrined in the Paris Agreement last December, the 1.5C goal has come under increased scrutiny and examination.

Torrential rains unleashed on south Louisiana in August were made almost twice as likely by human-caused climate change, according to a quick-fire analysis released just weeks after the flood waters subsided.

The head of the United Nation’s climate body has called for a thorough assessment of the feasibility of the international goal to limit warming to 1.5C.