- Conference of the Parties 16 – Meeting of the Parties 6 – The Cancun Agreements: Outcome of the work of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention – United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change – http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2010/cop16/eng/07a01.pdf
“Further recognizes that deep cuts in global greenhouse gas emissions are required according to science, and as documented in the Fourth Assessment Report of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change, with a view to reducing global greenhouse gas emissions so as to hold the increase in global average temperature below 2°C above pre-industrial levels, and that Parties should take urgent action to meet this long-term goal, consistent with science and on the basis of equity; Also recognizes the need to consider, in the context of the first review, as referred to in paragraph 138 below, strengthening the long-term global goal on the basis of the best available scientific knowledge, including in relation to a global average temperature rise of 1.5°C.” - Richard S.J. Tol (2007) – Europe’s long-term climate target: A critical evaluation – Energy Policy 35:424-432 doi:10.1016/j.enpol.2005.12.003 – Research unit Sustainability and Global Change, Hamburg University and Centre for Marine and Atmospheric Science – http://www.mi.uni-hamburg.de/fileadmin/fnu-files/publication/tol/RM7208.pdf
“This target is supported by rather thin arguments, based on inadequate methods, sloppy reasoning, and selective citation from a very narrow set of studies. In the scientific literature on ‘dangerous interference with the climate system’, most … studies do not make specific recommendations, with the exception of cost-benefit analyses, which unanimously argue for less stringent policy targets. However, there are also a few ‘scientific’ studies that recommend a target without supporting argumentation. Overall, the 2 ºC target of the EU seems unfounded.” - Phil England – Tax on carbon: The only way to save our planet? – The Independent, 04/01/2011 – http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/tax-on-carbon-the-only-way-to-save-our-planet-2175130.html
“Two degrees Celsius is guaranteed disaster,» says Hansen scornfully. «It is equivalent to the early Pliocene epoch [between 5.5 and 2.5 million years ago] when the sea level was 25m higher. What we don’t know is how long it takes ice sheets to disintegrate, but we know we’d be starting a process which then is going to be out of control. Because the way it works – the planet is out of energy balance, most of the additional energy is going into the ocean, which melts the ice shelves, which then allows the ice sheets to discharge ice more rapidly – if you want to stop that and you’ve pushed it up to two degrees, then you’ve got to cool off the ocean. Well that’s going to take hundreds of years. So you would have a situation which can’t be fixed except with some geo-engineering, which is a pretty awful inheritance to leave for our children.” - Joel B. Smith et al (2008) – Assessing dangerous climate change through an update of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) ‘‘reasons for concern’’ – Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences PNAS 106:4133-4137 doi:10.1073/pnas.0812355106 – Published online: 17/03/2009 – Stratus Consulting, Inc. – http://www.pnas.org/content/106/11/4133.full.pdf+html – 15 authors
“Based on our expert judgment about new findings … compared with results reported in the TAR [IPCC Third Assessment Report], smaller increases in GMT [Global Mean Temperature] are now estimated to lead to significant or substantial consequences in the framework of the 5 ‘reasons for concern’.” - James E. Hansen and Makiko Sato (2011) – Earth’s Climate History: Implications for Tomorrow – GISS NASA – NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Columbia University Earth Institute – http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/hansen_15/PaleoImplications.pdf
“The paleoclimate record makes it clear that a target to keep human made global warming less than 2°C, as proposed in some international discussions, is not sufficient – it is a prescription for disaster.” - IPCC Working Group I (2013) – 5th Assessment Report The Physical Science Basis – Summary for Policymakers – Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change, 27/09/2013 –http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-spm.pdf
“Cada una de las últimas tres décadas ha sido, sucesivamente, más caliente en la superficie de la Tierra que cualquier otra década precedente desde 1850. En el hemisferio norte, 1983-2012 fue, probablemente, el período de 30 años más cálido de los últimos 1.400 años.” - Mark Stafford Smith et al (2011) – Rethinking adaptation for a 4°C world – Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London A 369:196-216 doi:10.1098/rsta.2010.0277 – CSIRO Climate Adaptation Flagship – 4 authors
“Adapting to global warming of 4◦C cannot be seen as a mere extrapolation of adaptation to 2◦C; it will be a more substantial, continuous and transformative process. However, a variety of psychological, social and institutional barriers to adaptation are exacerbated by uncertainty and long timeframes, with the danger of immobilizing decision-makers. In this paper, we show how complexity and uncertainty can be reduced by a systematic approach to categorizing the interactions between decision lifetime, the type of uncertainty in the relevant drivers of change and the nature of adaptation response options.” - Kevin Anderson and Alice Bows (2012) – A new paradigm for climate change – Nature Climate Change 2:639–640 doi:10.1038/nclimate1646 – Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, School of Mechanical Civil and Aerospace Engineering, University of Manchester; Sustainable Consumption Institute, School of Mechanical Civil and Aerospace Engineering, University of Manchester – http://kevinanderson.info/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Pre-edited-version-A-new-paradigm-for-climate-change-2012-.pdf
“When it comes to avoiding a 2 °C rise, ‘impossible’ is translated into ‘difficult but doable’, whereas ‘urgent and radical’ emerge as ‘challenging’ — all to appease the god of economics (or, more precisely, finance). For example, to avoid exceeding the maximum rate of emission reduction dictated by economists, ‘impossibly’ early peaks in emissions are assumed, together with naive notions about ‘big’ engineering and the deployment rates of low-carbon infrastructure. More disturbingly, as emissions budgets dwindle, so geo-engineering is increasingly proposed to ensure that the diktat of economists remains unquestioned.” - T. C. Johns et al (2011) – Climate change under aggressive mitigation: the ENSEMBLES multi-model experiment – Climate Dynamics 37:1975-2003 doi:10.1007/s00382-011-1005-5 – Hadley Centre, Met Office – http://www.lmd.jussieu.fr/~jldufres/publi/2011/Johns.Royer.ea-cdyn-2011-ensembles.pdf – 19 authors
“Our study illustrates that the benefits of mitigation will not be realised in temperature terms until several decades after emissions reductions begin, and may vary considerably between regions. A subset of the models containing integrated carbon cycles agree that land and ocean sinks remove roughly half of present day anthropogenic carbon emissions from the atmosphere, and that anthropogenic carbon emissions must decrease by at least 50% by 2050 relative to 1990, with further large reductions needed beyond that to achieve the E1 concentrations pathway. Negative allowable anthropogenic carbon emissions at and beyond 2100 cannot be ruled out for the E1 scenario.” - Valentina Bosetti et al (2013) – Incentives and stability of international climate coalitions: An integrated assessment – Energy Policy 55:44–56 doi:10.1016/j.enpol.2012.12.035 – Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM) and Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change (CMCC) – 5 authors
“This paper analyses the incentives to participate in an international climate agreement and the stability of the resulting climate coalition using the integrated assessment model WITCH. Coalition stability is assessed under alternative assumptions concerning the pure rate of time preference, the aggregation of social welfare, and the severity of climate damages. The profitability, stability, and strong potential internal stability of a number of coalitions, those potentially effective in reducing GHG emissions, is explored in the paper. The main conclusion is that only the grand coalition, i.e. a coalition where all world regions cooperate to reduce emissions, can maintain GHG concentration below 550 ppm CO2-eq. However, this coalition is not internally stable, even when allowing for monetary transfers across world regions. Nonetheless, the paper also shows that strongly potentially internally stable coalitions exist, though of smaller size, which can mitigate global warming and limit GHG concentrations to 600 ppm CO2-eq.” - Detlef P. van Vuuren et al (2013) – The role of negative CO2 emissions for reaching 2 °C—insights from integrated assessment modelling – Climatic Change 118:15-27 doi:10.1007/s10584-012-0680-5 – Published online: 06/02/2013 – PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency + Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development, Department of Geosciences, Utrecht University + – http://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs10584-012-0680-5 – 6 authors
“Limiting climate change to 2 °C with a high probability requires reducing cumulative emissions to about 1600 GtCO2 over the 2000–2100 period. This requires unprecedented rates of decarbonization even in the short-run. The availability of the option of net negative emissions, such as bio-energy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) or reforestation/ afforestation, allows to delay some of these emission reductions. In the paper, we assess the demand and potential for negative emissions in particular from BECCS. Both stylized calculations and model runs show that without the possibility of negative emissions, pathways meeting the 2 °C target with high probability need almost immediate emission reductions or simply become infeasible. The potential for negative emissions is uncertain. We show that negative emissions from BECCS are probably limited to around 0 to 10 GtCO2/year in 2050 and 0 to 20 GtCO2/year in 2100. Estimates on the potential of afforestation options are in the order of 0–4 GtCO2/year. Given the importance and the uncertainty concerning BECCS, we stress the importance of near-term assessments of its availability as today’s decisions has important consequences for climate change mitigation in the long run. ” - IPCC Working Group I (2013) – 5th Assessment Report The Physical Science Basis – Summary for Policymakers – Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change – – http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-spm.pdf
“Limiting the warming caused by anthropogenic CO2 emissions alone with a probability of >33%, >50%, and >66% to less than 2°C since the period 1861–188022, will require cumulative CO2 emissions from all anthropogenic sources to stay between 0 and about 1560 GtC, 0 and about 1210 GtC, and 0 and about 1000 GtC since that period respectively23. These upper amounts are reduced to about 880 GtC, 840 GtC, and 800 GtC respectively, when accounting for non-CO2 forcings as in RCP2.6. An amount of 531 [446 to 616] GtC, was already emitted by 2011. {12.5} ” - Timothy J. Garrett (2009) – Are there basic physical constraints on future anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide? – Climatic Change 104:437-455 doi 10.1007/s10584-009-9717-9 – Department of Atmospheric Sciences, University of Utah
“Viewed from this perspective, civilization evolves in a spontaneous feedback loop maintained only by energy consumption and incorporation of environmental matter. Because the current state of the system, by nature, is tied to its unchangeable past, it looks unlikely that there will be any substantial near-term departure from recently observed acceleration in CO2 emission rates. For predictions over the longer term, however, what is required is thermodynamically based models for how rates of carbonization and energy efficiency evolve. To this end, these rates are almost certainly constrained by the size and availability of environmental resource reservoirs.” - Andrew K. Jorgenson (2009) – The Sociology of Unequal Exchange in Ecological Context: A Panel Study of Lower-Income Countries – Sociological Forum 24:22–46 doi:10.1111/j.1573-7861.2008.01085.x Department of Sociology and Anthropology, North Carolina State University
“The structural theory of ecologically unequal exchange posits that through the vertical flow of exports from lower-income countries, the stratified world economy enables higher-income countries to misappropriate global environmental space. Tied to their unsustainable consumption levels, this misappropriation by higher-income countries leads to the suppression of resource consumption in lower-income countries, well below globally sustainable thresholds, which negatively impacts the well-being of domestic populations. To evaluate key aspects of the theory, I test the hypothesis that lower-income countries with elevated levels of exports sent to higher-income countries exhibit lower consumption-based environmental demand, measured as per-capita ecological footprints. Findings for generalized least squares panel regression analyses of 66 lower-income countries from 1975 to 2000 confirm the hypothesis, providing support for the theory. Additional results indicate that the strength of the hypothesized relationship increased in magnitude during the 25-year period. These findings hold, net of the effects of economic development, ecological conditions, and other structural factors.” - Peter Newell and Matthew Paterson (2010) – Climate Capitalism: Global Warming and the Transformation of the Global Economy – Cambridge University Press – ISBN-13: 978-0521127288 – 202 págs.
“Recent attempts to calculate the net effect of carbon saved by the range of existing voluntary initiatives on climate change have concluded that it is simply impossible to say [ref].” - Jos G.J. Olivier et al (2013) – Trends in Global CO2 Emissions – PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, 10/2013 – PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency – http://www.pbl.nl/sites/default/files/cms/publicaties/pbl-2013-trends-in-global-co2-emissions-2013-report-1148.pdf – 4 authors
“The increase in global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) from fossil-fuel combustion and other smaller industrial sources – the main cause of human-induced global warming – slowed down in 2012, while the global average annual growth rate of 2.4 ppm in atmospheric CO2 concentrations in 2012 was rather high. Actual global emissions increased by 1.4% over 2011, reaching a total of 34.5 billion tonnes in 2012. After a correction for the leap year 2012, this increase was reduced to only 1.1%, compared with an average annual increase of 2.9% since 2000. The CO2 emission trend mainly reflects energy-related human activities which, over the past decade, were determined by economic growth, particularly in emerging countries. In 2012, a ‘decoupling’ of the increase in CO2 emissions from global” economic growth (in GDP) took place, which points to a shift towards less fossil-fuel intensive activities, more use of renewable energy and increased energy saving. Comparing regional CO2 emission trends reveals large differences in underlying causes, which complicates the evaluation of the robustness of observed trends.” - Per capita CO2 emissions in China reached European level – PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, 17/07/2012 –http://www.pbl.nl/en/news/newsitems/2012/per-capita-co2-emissions-in-china-reached-european-level
“Global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) increased by 3% last year, reaching an all-time high of 34 billion tonnes in 2011. In China, average per capita CO2 emissions increased by 9% to 7.2 tonnes CO2. This is similar to per capita emissions in the European Union.” - Michael Jakob and Robert Marschinski (2012) – Interpreting trade-related CO2 emission transfers – Nature Climate Change 3:19–23 doi:10.1038/nclimate1630 – Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research
“Most industrialized countries are net importers of carbon emissions, that is, they release fewer emissions for the production of their total exported goods and services than the amount generated (by their trading partners) for producing their total imported goods and services [ref]. But what do such carbon trade-deficits imply in terms of global CO2 emissions and the design of carbon trade-policies? Drawing on trade theory, this Perspective argues that a deeper understanding of these observed net emission transfers is required to assess how international trade affects global emissions and proposes a method to disentangle the underlying determinants of such transfers.” - Todd D. Stern (2013) – The Shape of a New International Climate Agreement – Chatham House, London, 22/10/2013 – Special Envoy for Climate Change, U.S. Department of State – http://www.state.gov/e/oes/rls/remarks/2013/215720.htm
“Once again, to make real progress, we need to elevate practical problem solving above rhetoric and ideology. Lectures about compensation, reparations and the like will produce nothing but antipathy among developed country policy makers and their publics. But we can succeed on this front if we work together.”
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La humanidad se encuentra frente a una de las mayores disyuntivas que cabe imaginar. El sistema climático terrestre parece haber sido definitivamente desestabilizado, mientras la inmensa mayoría de la población vive ajena a un fenómeno llamado a marcar nuestras vidas de forma determinante y abrumadora. Comunidad científica, medios de comunicación y clase política se encuentran aturdidos por el fenómeno y sin respuestas adecuadas a la magnitud del desafío. Cuando las élites fracasan, es la hora de la gente.
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