THE world will likely breach the internationally agreed climate change threshold in about a decade, a new study warns.

The study, in Monday’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal, also warns that the planet is likely to keep heating to break through the next warming limit mid-century, even with big pollution cuts.

Modelling for the study using artificial intelligence reignites a debate on whether it’s still possible to limit global warming to 1.5°C, as called for in the 2015 Paris climate agreement, to minimise the most damaging effects of climate change. 

The world has already warmed 1.1°C or 1.2°C since pre-industrial times, scientists say.

Two climate scientists using machine learning calculated that the Earth will surpass the 1.5°C mark between 2033 and 2035. 

Stanford University’s Noah Diffenbaugh, a study co-author, said that the world is on the brink of the 1.5°C mark in “any realistic emissions reduction scenario.” Avoiding a 2°C rise, he said, may depend on nations meeting zero-emissions goals by the middle of this century.

In a high-pollution scenario, the world would hit the 2°C mark in 2050. Lower pollution levels could stave that off until 2054, the machine learning calculated.

Brown University environment institute director Kim Cobb said that the study “may be the beginning of the end of the 1.5°C target.”

Zeke Hausfather of the tech company Stripe and Berkeley Earth said it was time to “stop pretending” that limiting warming to 1.5°C is possible.

Professor Diffenbaugh said that there’s been so much warming already that it really doesn’t matter how much pollution is cut in the next several years.