Interview: A Call for Climate Goals Other Than Two Degrees Celsius

When international delegates meet in Paris next year to negotiate a new climate agreement, they’ll be aiming to keep the global average temperature from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, the maximum seen by many for avoiding the worst impacts of climate change. But David Victor, a professor of international relations at University of California San Diego, argued in a recent controversial commentary in Nature that the 2-degree goal is now unattainable and should be replaced by more meaningful goals. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, Victor explains why he believes the 2-degree threshold has failed to position policy makers to take serious action on climate change and outlines the “basket of indicators” that he and his co-author are suggesting be used instead.

Read the interview.