Mitigation or adaptation? When it comes to climate change, it's not a case of either/or

Here's a ridiculously extreme best-case scenario: everywhere in the world, we immediately cease all human-made CO2 emissions. Right now. No emissions. Forevermore.

Whatever we do from here, we've locked in at least some amount
of warming — and the climate impacts that come with it.

Great! Problem solved! Right? Well, not quite.

Climate change is a long, heavy, slow moving train crawling across decades. Even if we pull the emergency brake right now, we're not stopping for a while yet.

I mean, in terms of warming trajectories, ceasing all emissions immediately would be a very good thing to do. The best science currently estimates that under this super extreme best case scenario we could probably keep warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels.

But, even so — and especially if we shoot past 1.5 degrees and then 2 degrees, which is where the current trajectory takes us — the train has a hell of a distance to travel before it grinds to a halt. 

Whatever we do from here, we've locked in at least some amount of warming — and the climate impacts that come with it. 

Read the ABC News story by Joel Werner - “Mitigation or adaptation? When it comes to climate change, it's not a case of either/or.”