Big and exciting news are coming today from the UNFCCC climate talks currently being held in Bangkok, Thailand. Norway has announced a commitment to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions with 40% by 2020 – based on 1990 levels.

This emission reduction promise from the Norwegian government is now the biggest commitment announced by any industrialized country. It beats the European Union (the now former climate leader) who has so far only promised a 20% reduction by 2020.

Adopt A Negotiator says in a statement that this is “a great day for ambition” in the climate talks and praises Norway for committing to a target that comes very “close to what the science demands”.

“Norway has shown that we can be ambitious in these negotiations. They have decided to break ice today, to avoid their glaciers melting and to avoid seeing more and more devestating climate consequences around the world.”

I think we can thank the people in Norway for this strong climate commitment. If they hadn’t re-elected the country’s centre-left ruling coalition we might have seen a conservative Norway downplaying the severity of climate change instead.

Now we are just waiting for Norway to also take the lead on banning gas cars after 2015.

via Eco-Digital

Martin Parry, Jean Palutikof, Clair Hanson and Jason Lowe, all four respected and known scientists from the IPCC, have written on The Nature about the dangers of false optimism regarding climate change. They warn that the “damages will be large” if we continue to believe that we have climate change under control.

“We have lost ten years talking about climate change but not acting on it. Meanwhile, evidence from the IPCC indicates that the problem is bigger than we thought. A curious optimism […] pervades the political arenas of the G8 summit and UN climate meetings. This is false optimism, and it is obscuring reality. The sooner we recognize this delusion, confront the challenge and implement both stringent emissions cuts and major adaptation efforts, the less will be the damage that we and our children will have to live with.”

They also warn that a 50% reduction of global emissions below 1990 levels (note that a 50% reduction is often referred to as “stringent” in the political world), that the G8, EU and the UN climate change conference in Bali last December has urged for, “will not avoid major global impacts.”

According to them even at an 80% reduction of global greenhouse gas emissions “damages will be large” and “likely to be unavoidable.”

“Residual damage will be great unless we invest in adaptation now. Much of the damage could be avoided by adaptation, but again, this would require a much larger effort than is currently planned.

Ten years ago one of the authors, Martin Parry, proposed that adaptation would be unavoidable. This view was criticized as ‘defeatist’, but the data now clearly support it.”

Martin Parry, Jean Palutikof, Clair Hanson and Jason Lowe are just a few of all the other scientists that recently have spoken out about the dangers of playing down the effects and risks from climate change.

Their message is clear.

We need strong actions today. Tomorrow will be too late.

The Swedish climate commission was created to set up guidelines, emissions reduction goals and to create unanimity between all the major political parties in Sweden regarding climate change. Even though the opposition, as well as the currently ruling right-wing alliance government called for “tough” emission reduction targets the commission failed to create unanimity.

Hans Jonsson, chairman of the climate commission, said during a press conference today that “we are in agreement on 300 pages worth of text. There is a half-page left on which we cannot find agreement. It has to do with Sweden’s emissions targets for 2020.”

The right-wing government’s suggestion was to reduce greenhouse gas emissions with 38% to 2020, compared to 1990 levels. They also accepted that 7-8% of emission reductions in other countries would be allowed. That means only 30% emission reductions would actually be made in Sweden.

The opposition’s suggestion was 40% emission reductions and not allowing any (of those) reductions to be made outside of Sweden.

While the climate commission failed to agree on emission reductions in the “short term” they succeeded to agree on goals for the medium and long term. The commission agreed that the emissions should be reduced with 75-90% by 2100 (compared to 1990 years levels).

The commission also suggested a 50% increase in the Swedish railway capacity and use. According to the commission a per kilometre tax on heavy transport vehicles, higher emission standards on new cars and a 9 öre increase per kilogram in the carbon dioxide tax is also needed. They also urged the government to increase gas prices by 70 öre (about 11 cents), and increase it “in parallel with Sweden’s overall economic development.”

Key to Swedish Political Parties:

Government (right/centre-right):
Moderates (Mod)
Centre Party (Cen)
Liberal Party (Lib)
Christian Democrats (ChrDem)

Opposition (left/centre-left):
Social Democrats (SocDem)
Green Party (Green)
Left Party (Left)