It was the first time the nearly 200 countries in the UN climate talks process had put a number on what constituted the limit for dangerous climate change (Germany had done it years before, followed by the EU). And with hindsight, is one of the signal agreements of a summit that was widely derided as a failure.

Since then, the 2°C target – or obligation, as some in climate diplomacy circles refer to it – has been repeated like a mantra, mentioned thousands of times in newspaper articles and most recently uttered aloud repeatedly last week by heads of state in New York for a climate summit organised by Ban Ki-moon. But two academics in the prestigious journal Nature now argue that the 2°C target has outlived its usefulness. They say it should be abandoned and replaced with a series of measures – “vital signs” of the planet’s health.

Available at: http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2373457/could-the-2-c-climate-target-be-completely-wrong