The United Nations scientific panel on climate change recently released a major report that examined the benefits of trying to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above nineteenth-century temperatures and described the consequences of failing to meet that goal. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that the benefits of limiting global warming to well below the threshold of 2 degrees Celsius – the main target of current international policy – were substantial. However, achieving that objective would require “far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society” to immediately reverse emissions trends.