New research from the UK Met Office, one of the world’s leading providers of environmental and weather-related services, shows that the world’s efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions would only offer a 50-50 chance of keeping temperature rises below the two degree threshold.
Dr Vicky Pope, Head of Climate Change Advice at the Met Office states: “Even with drastic cuts in emissions in the next 10 years, our results project that there will only be around a 50% chance of keeping global temperatures rises below 2 °C.
“This idealised emissions scenario is based on emissions peaking in 2015 and quickly changing from an increase of 2–3% per year to a decrease of 3% per year. For every 10 years we delay action another 0.5 °C will be added to the most likely temperature rise.”
During the embarrassing UN Climate Change Conference in Poznań, Poland, Al Gore held a speech where he said that the old and now “inadequate” climate change targets of 450 ppm (parts per million of CO2) had been made obsolete by new science (That’s what we and others have been saying for a while now). Gore said that the world should instead aim for a 350 ppm target.
George Monbiot writes today on the Guardian that the new EU emissions agreement is a disaster and calls it carbon colonialism.
So much for the Europeans leading the way on climate change. Even as our governments claim they want to drag the world into an effective climate agreement in Poznan, they have just pulled Europe out of one in Brussels.
The agreement they have just reached is a disaster. The 20% carbon cut they promise by 2020 falls miles short of what’s needed, and they’ll be able to buy most of it from abroad anyway. All this means, in a world which has to eliminate most of its carbon pollution, is that other countries, which have sold their easiest reductions to us, will then find it harder to make emissions cuts of their own. It’s carbon colonialism, in which Europe picks the low-hanging fruit in developing countries, leaving them with much tougher choices later on.
Leaders from the European Union (EU) have just agreed on a new watered-down climate deal to tackle global warming. The actual emissions cuts could amount to as little as 4% by 2020.
Yesterday UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in Poznan that “the world is watching us. The next generation is counting on us. We must not fail.” He also called for the EU to show the way and leadership on the climate crisis for other countries. Unfortunately it seems the short-sighted “leaders” of Europe ignored him. Instead of 30% emission cuts by 2020 the EU leaders only agreed on cuts by 20% by 2020, compared to 1990 levels.
But the actual emission cuts could end up being as little as 4% by 2020, environmental groups warned. That is because of special exemptions for dirty industries in Europe as well as allowing cheap emission cuts overseas to be counted to the EU total. The latter has been heavily pushed by the new Swedish right-wing government who has called for as much as 88% of the EU emission cuts to be allowed to do overseas in development countries.
Yesterday, during the Governors Global Climate Summit in California, Obama promised that USA would “engage vigorously” in the climate negotiations and “help lead the world toward a new era of global cooperation on climate change”.
Unfortunately Obama yesterday turned down invitations to go to the UN climate conference in Poland this December. And he has not yet promised that as President he will sign the Kyoto protocol.
Below you can watch Obama’s speech during the climate summit, and read the transcript of the video:
During a climate summit in California today Barack Obama said, in a taped video, that his “presidency will mark a new chapter in America’s leadership on climate change”.
Obama spoke about his support for a cap-and-trade system and that he would reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 and with 80% by 2050. Obama also said he wanted to give the private sector $15 billion each year to support their investments efforts in clean energy.
“I promise you this: When I am president, any governor who’s willing to promote clean energy will have a partner in the White House. Any company that’s willing to invest in clean energy will have an ally in Washington. And any nation that’s willing to join the cause of combating climate change will have an ally in the United States of America.”
Green Blog has daily updates and posts from authors around the world. Get our latest posts, commentaries
and articles by RSS-feed or by adding your
Email to our newsletter.
