PARIS: Current pledges from rich and developing nations for cutting carbon pollution will stoke potentially catastrophic warming by century’s end, according to a study released on Sunday on the eve of the Copenhagen climate summit.
National commitments proposed so far for the December 7-18 UN conference would mean the global temperature would rise by 3.5 degrees Celsius (6.3 degrees Fahrenheit) over pre-industrial times, way over a 2.0 C (3.6 F) threshold widely considered safe, the study said.
Concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO²) would hit about 650 parts per million (ppm), according to the tally published by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany and energy specialists Ecofys. “The pledges on the table will not halt emissions growth before 2040, let alone by 2015 as indicated by the IPCC [the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] and are far from halving emissions by 2050 as has been called for by the G8,” said Niklas Hoehne of Ecofys.
“Instead, global emissions are likely to be nearly double 1990 levels by 2040 based on present pledges.” The Copenhagen conference gathers the 192-member UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Its task is to craft a global pact that will dramatically reduce man-made carbon emissions — invisible gases that trap solar heat and warm the atmosphere, interfering with Earth’s delicate climate system.
Hoehne said that pledges by developed countries so far were currently projected to be 13 to 19 percent below 1990 levels.
