The limitation of the global rise in temperature as a result of climate change is one of the greatest challenges of the 21st century.

Decisive for the anthropogenic greenhouse effect is the greenhouse gas emission since industrialisation around 1900. In order to limit the global temperature rise to the climate targets (1.5° or 2° target), only a certain amount of greenhouse gases may be released into the atmosphere. With correspondingly moderate forecasts by climate researchers (IPCC 2014, IPCC 2014, Rog 14), this means that in order to meet the 2° target, only greenhouse gases amounting to 720 gigatonnes of CO₂-equivalents may be released into the atmosphere (as at 1 January 2018). Assuming that the current greenhouse gas emissions of around 40 gigatonnes of CO₂-equivalents (1268 t/s), the remaining time until the maximum greenhouse gas load is exceeded can be calculated.

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Editing: Christoph Schmidt (M.Eng.), Christopher Senge (M.Eng.)