Whilst most people are trying to keep rising temperatures to 2°, the bad news is that we are on course for the worst case climate change scenario of massive 6° by the end of the Century.
Such a rise – which would be much higher nearer the poles – would be totally and utterly catastrophic and irreversible with doomsday consequences.
Large parts of the planet would be uninhabitable, according to the new research from the Global Carbon Project.
It means that we are on course for the most extreme scenario envisaged in the last report from the IPCC in 2007. The lead scientist Professor Le Quéré, whyose research is published in the journal Nature Geoscience, said. “We’re at the top end of the IPCC scenario,” she said.
Although the 6C rise has been muted many times before this is the first time that scientists have said that society is now on a path to meet it.
It gives greater urgency for the politicians to deliver a deal in Copenhagen, just days after we hear that a deal in Copenhagen is essentially dead, although yesterday’s statement by Presidents Obama and Hu means that the deal could just be in intensive care rather than the morgue.
Obama said that he and Hu would continue to press for a deal that would “rally the world“.
Well if this study is not enough to rally the world then I am not sure what more is needed.
The figures are startling: The Global Carbon Project study found that there has been a 29 per cent increase in global CO2 emissions from fossil fuel between 2000 and 2008, the last year for which figures are available.
In total, CO2 emissions from the burning of fossil fuels have increased by 41 per cent between 1990 and 2008, yet global emissions in 1990 are the reference level set by the Kyoto Protocol, which countries are trying to fall below in terms of their own emissions.
Professor Le Quéré said “The Copenhagen conference next month is in my opinion the last chance to stabilise climate at C above pre-industrial levels in a smooth and organised way,” she said. “If the agreement is too weak, or the commitments not respected, it is not 2.5C or 3C we will get: it’s 5C or 6C – that is the path we’re on. The timescales here are extremely tight for what is needed to stabilise the climate”…
The time is tight indeed..
We only have a month.