Thomas Hahn is associate professor at the Stockholm Resilience Centre and Stockholm University research leader for FAIRTRANS. Robert Höglund is a carbon removal advisor with Marginal Carbon. Mikael Karlsson is associate professor at Uppsala University and research leader for FAIRTRANS.
Recent news articles, in the Guardian and from Bloomberg among others, have proclaimed the death of the 1.5°C target given how emissions and lack of sharper commitments are developing. In a new study, in Nature Communications we examine how the responsibility to limit long-term warming to 1.5°C could be allocated after a temporary overshoot, if countries are held accountable in line with the principle of Common But Differentiated Responsibility and Respective Capabilities (CBDR-RC) as established under the UNFCCC.
This principle, a cornerstone of climate diplomacy, recognizes that while all countries share responsibility for addressing climate change, their obligations differ based on historical emissions and capacity to act. By comparing countries’ past emissions and future emission claims with their equal cumulative per capita emissions, we establish a new indicator – “additional carbon accountability” – showing countries’ responsibilities beyond current climate targets.
If existing national climate targets are met, the 1.5°C fossil carbon budget (for a 50% probability of meeting that goal) will be exceeded with 576 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide (GtCO₂). To meet the 1.5°C target, our indicator shows that the EU, China, the US, and 15 other countries must sharpen their own current targets with faster mitigation and more carbon dioxide removal (CDR), such as afforestation and technical solutions like direct air capture and biochar. All other countries must stick to their national climate plans (nationally determined contributions – NDCs) and net-zero targets.
Counting future emissions
As an example, the EU would need to mitigate or remove an additional 48 GtCO₂ or finance additional reductions beyond current targets in other countries, on top of reaching its own targets in terms of the NDC for 2030 and net zero emissions by 2050. For China, the additional carbon accountability is 150 GtCO₂ and for the USA 167 GtCO₂.
While there is no international agreement on how to operationalize the fairness principles of the Paris Agreement, the new indicator – based on the CBDR-RC – provides an important tool to clarify what different countries are accountable for in relation to the mitigation (emissions) gap. This information feeds directly into the contested annual negotiations on climate financing within the UNFCCC COP meetings.
In general, high-income countries have large carbon debts, while several of the BRICS and upper-middle-income countries have high planned future emissions. Much focus of climate advocacy has been on getting high-income countries to reduce their emissions. Of planned future emissions, 26% come from high-income countries, but as much as 38% comes from upper-middle-income countries with an additional carbon accountability.
China and Iran, for example, have plans for large future emissions and could theoretically meet a large part of their accountability by achieving stricter reduction targets. But countries that have most of their emissions in the past, like the US and the EU, need to turn to not only stricter targets but also CDR, ensuring net negative outcomes.
National responsibility
Unlike the COP29 outcome on financing, which hinges on the division between developed and developing countries, our indicator assigns responsibility to individual countries based on their additional carbon accountability. This approach bypasses the debate over whether only developed countries should collectively finance emissions reductions in developing countries, instead focusing solely on national accountability for emissions.
In the article, we also calculate what it would cost to meet the accountability with CDR or reductions if the cost is $150 per tonne of carbon dioxide. For Iran, the total additional carbon accountability cost would be 1,200% of its GDP in 2021, Russia 530%, China 130%, the US 110%, and the EU 41%.
Our article points to how the responsibility to stay under 1.5°C in the long term could be allocated in line with the CBDR-RC principle. But will countries shoulder this responsibility?
Political will in short supply
For most high-income countries, the focus in practice is more on meeting existing targets, with the topic of paying for historic carbon debt absent. There is also no agreement among countries on how to operationalize the CBDR-RC principle. And few would expect countries like Russia and Iran to make radical emissions reduction cuts, not to mention taking any responsibility for historic emissions.
Hence, it does not seem very likely from the current political situation that countries would increase the ambitions of their national climate plans and net zero targets enough to meet their additional carbon accountability. However, what seems unlikely today can change.
Moreover, every fraction of a degree matters, and our indicator can be used also for other temperature targets, such as 1.7°C or 2.0°C. Our results can be used to put higher pressure on individual countries with plans for large future emissions and to start holding countries with large carbon debts accountable for their historic emissions.
Dr. Ingo Fetzer, a researcher on global systems analyses with the Stockholm Resilience Centre at Stockholm University and Dr. Johannes Morfeldt, a researcher in climate and energy systems at Chalmers University of Technology also contributed to this article.
The post How to resuscitate 1.5°C by identifying accountable countries appeared first on Climate Home News.
How to resuscitate 1.5°C by identifying accountable countries
Saturday, 17 October 2026
7.18 AM AWST
Hi folks! We’re joining you live from the Rainbow Warrior where we will be providing you with updates as our four activists continue scaling and occupying Woodside’s gas platform. The activists are peacefully protesting against Woodside’s latest gas expansion plans, the Browse project, which would see up to 57 toxic wells drilled at Scott Reef.
“Right now our activists are scaling Woodside’s massive Floating Production Unit. They are scaling the South-East pillar and the underside of the Helideck. They’ll be setting up camp soon and have plenty of provisions with them – so stick around!”
5:45 AM AWST
Our RHIBS are in the water! We’ve deployed our four activists and our ship crew on our small fast boats, headed to the gas platform. We’re carrying crew and equipment, plenty of food, all of our safety climbing gear, some big banners, cameras and a whole lot of heart… someone even has something to read after they get settled in.
5:26 AM AWST
Before sunrise activists prepared to launch RHIBS from the Rainbow Warrior.
Looking for a front seat view?
You can follow along with the Live Rainbow Warrior bow cam here!
Looking for more?
Follow us on Instagram for a peek behind the scenes and hear from our Rainbow Warrior crew.
Live blog: Greenpeace activists occupy Woodside gas project to save Scott Reef
Climate Change
Greenpeace activists climb and occupy Woodside’s Scarborough gas project calling on the Australian government to “Stop Woodside’s Dirty Gas” and “Save Scott Reef”
PERTH, Saturday 17 October 2026 — Four Greenpeace Australia Pacific activists are scaling and occupying a Floating Production Unit at Woodside’s Scarborough gas project off the coast of Western Australia, displaying banners reading: “Stop Woodside’s Dirty Gas. Save Scott Reef.”
- Photos and video available here and here. More will be uploaded throughout the day.
- Content and live updates will be uploaded to a live blog and to Instagram
Early this morning at 05:45 AWST, Greenpeace Australia Pacific activists launched from the Rainbow Warrior, Greenpeace’s flagship vessel, scaling and attaching themselves to a Floating Production Unit (FPU), a key piece of gas processing infrastructure at the Scarborough gas field over 200km off the coast of Exmouth.
Woodside has since confirmed it has initiated a temporary shut down of the FPU.
Greenpeace Australia Pacific is occupying the gas platform in peaceful protest of Woodside’s plans to drill for oil and gas at Scott Reef as part of its Browse proposal.
David Ritter, CEO at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said: “Greenpeace Australia Pacific is taking action today to expose the unacceptable risk to Scott Reef posed by Woodside’s plans.
“Australians love our oceans. Woodside’s reckless Browse gas proposal would turn the magnificent Scott Reef into an industrial gas zone. Woodside wants to drill up to 57 toxic wells around Scott Reef, Australia’s largest oceanic reef, home to nesting green sea turtles, and endangered species like pygmy blue whales and the dusky sea snake; it is a place like nowhere else on Earth.
“Woodside has an alarming track record of oil spills, incidents and environmental neglect, and can’t be trusted with our oceans. From whaling in Albany in the seventies, to Woodside’s threat to Scott Reef today, there’s more than fifty years of history, of Greenpeace taking action off WA’s coasts to protect our oceans.
“There’s no future in new gas projects. Our future is in secure homegrown renewable energy, green industry and exports, where communities and places like Scott Reef are protected — there’s no future in dirty gas shipped offshore.
“The prospect of drilling for oil or gas on the Great Barrier Reef would be considered absolute madness today, but that is exactly the decision before the government: save Scott Reef or risk its destruction at the hands of a gas corporation.”
From aboard the Floating Production Unit, Dr Chris Holden, Greenpeace Australia Pacific activist said: “As a doctor, when I see new fossil fuel projects like Woodside’s Browse project being put forward, I can’t help but think about the impact this is going to have on the health of our communities and planet, and feel a sense of duty to act.
“Not only will this project do irrevocable harm to nature at Scott Reef, it will have a terrible impact on our climate, putting all of our lives at risk.
“On the Rainbow Warrior I’m carrying a copy of the 2025 Lancet countdown report, which warns that health impacts of climate change are worsening, with millions dying needlessly each year due to fossil fuel dependence, growing emissions, and failure to adequately adapt.
“With warnings like this from the leading global health professionals, our government simply can’t allow fossil fuel projects like Woodside’s Browse project to go ahead. It is their duty to do what is in the best interest of our communities.”
Almost half a million people have signed a petition calling on the government to Save Scott Reef and Woodside’s Browse gas project.
-ENDS-
Notes:
- Dial-in, SimSat and Zoom interviews with Geoff Bice, WA Campaign Lead at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, currently aboard the Rainbow Warrior, can be organised separately
Media contact:
Greenpeace Australia Pacific media team on +61 406 231 892 or +61 407 581 404
The board of the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD) will decide on Thursday on whether to “provisionally set aside” $20 million for Nepal to deal with some of the effects of the climate-driven flood it suffered in August.
The motion, seen by Climate Home News, has been drafted by a group of board members from both developed and developing countries and so is likely to pass easily at the fund’s first-ever extraordinary board meeting on October 22.
It invites the government of Nepal to submit a proposal for how to use the money, with the board then deciding at one of its regular board meetings whether to approve the proposal or not.
While Nepali officials have described $20 million as merely “symbolic” in the face of the $4.8 billion estimated costs of recovery and reconstruction, it would be the first time the new FRLD – agreed in 2022 months after devastating floods in Pakistan – has set aside money for a specific disaster.
Until now the fund has only taken requests through a single call for proposals, launched at COP30 in Belém last November, that gave countries six months to submit requests.
Most of the 180 projects the FRLD is currently considering are designed to help countries avoid damage from future climate disasters, for example by strengthening responses to floods in Bangladesh and Lagos.
The draft decision says Nepal’s proposal will serve as a pilot for how funding requests can be submitted outside of the fund’s current timetable. That could let governments seek funds quickly after a climate disaster strikes, rather than waiting for the next call.
This arrangement would set the fund apart from other United Nations funds designed for climate adaptation or cutting emissions like the Green Climate Fund.
Climate campaigners from Fill the Fund said the draft decision is “a real step forward” as it is “the first time this Fund has moved to respond to a specific disaster”.
Too little, too late
The FRLD was agreed by governments at COP27, set up and operationalised at COP28 in 2023 but has yet to award any money. The 180 funding requests it is currently considering would cost around $2.8 billion, but it only has $350 million to allocate.
The United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has described the amount of money available in the fund as “ridiculously small” and Fill the Fund said $20 million “is a meaningful signal but it is a drop against an ocean of need”.
A glacial rock and ice collapse sent a torrent of water and debris through Nepal and the Chinese-administered region of Tibet on August 26. It killed more than 1,400 people, left thousands more missing and destroyed homes, bridges, roads and hydropower plants. Nepal’s finance and environment ministers quickly appealed to the FRLD board for funds, saying that “time is of the essence”.
Their call was followed swiftly by a letter from developing country FRLD board members urging the board’s co-chairs to organise an extraordinary meeting to allocate funds to Nepal.
But developed countries initially called for an informal consultation rather than a full board meeting. It took a further 45 days for the board’s co-chairs to organise an extraordinary board meeting for October 22 and to draft a motion for adoption.
Fill the Fund called for a permanent way of the fund rapid responding to disasters as “Nepal should not have required historic letters, an informal drafting group and the Fund’s first-ever extraordinary meeting simply to unlock an emergency response. The next country cannot wait two months and a bureaucratic marathon. Speed must be built in, not improvised.”
The post UN’s loss and damage fund set to give Nepal $20m for flood recovery appeared first on Climate Home News.
UN’s loss and damage fund set to give Nepal $20m for flood recovery
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Live blog: Greenpeace activists occupy Woodside gas project to save Scott Reef
Greenpeace activists climb and occupy Woodside’s Scarborough gas project calling on the Australian government to “Stop Woodside’s Dirty Gas” and “Save Scott Reef”
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