OSLO: Global warming is on track to breach a two degrees Celsius threshold by 2050 unless governments at least double their efforts to limit greenhouse gas emissions, scientists said on Thursday.

Plans by almost 200 governments to cut greenhouse gases are far too weak to match targets set in a Paris Agreement on climate change last December for a drastic shift from fossil fuels towards greener energies, they said.

“We’ve really got a problem,” Robert Watson, a British-American scientist who was among the seven authors of the study and is a former head of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said.

The Paris Agreement sets a goal of limiting a rise in average world temperatures to “well below” 2C above pre-industrial times, while pursuing a tougher 1.5 Celsius (2.7F) limit. “If indeed these governments are serious about trying to hit the 2C mark they really have to double or triple the effort of the current pledges made in Paris,” Watson said.

The study, by Watson and other senior scientists, said the 2C limit “could be reached by 2050, even if pledges (in Paris) are fully implemented.”

Published in Dawn, September 30th, 2016