Two degrees no longer seen as global warming guardrail

PARIS - Limiting global warming to 2C will not prevent destructive and deadly climate impacts, as once hoped, dozens of experts concluded in a score of scientific studies released on Monday.

A world that heats up by 2C - long regarded as the temperature ceiling for a climate-safe planet - could see mass displacement due to rising seas, a drop in per capita income, regional shortages of food and fresh water, and the loss of animal and plant species at an accelerated speed.

Poor and emerging countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America will get hit hardest, according to the studies in the British Royal Society's Philosophical Transactions A.