Warming rescue plan doomed, report warns

Adam Morton in the Sydney Morning Herald (Australia): The world has little chance of avoiding at least two degrees of global warming this century - the projected threshold for unpredictable and accelerated climate changes - if the emissions targets proposed by rich nations are locked in at next week's Copenhagen summit, an analysis has found.

A report by German-based consultants Climate Analytics says wealthy countries will arrive in Denmark with proposals that would lead to a joint cut in greenhouse gas emissions of between 13 and 20 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020. Australia's contribution is a 5 to 25 per cent cut, with the final figure dependent on the level of international agreement reached.

The industrialised world target is well below the 25 to 40 per cent range that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found would be necessary for a 50/50 chance of keeping the temperature rise near two degrees. Factor in climate policies proposed by major developing nations, including China, and global emissions could increase 35 per cent between 1990 and 2020 - a rise that is said to lock in the inundation of island countries such as Tuvalu, the Maldives and Kiribati.

Scientists have warned that global emissions must peak between 2015 and 2020 to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. The analysis will add weight to a push by the US and the G77 bloc of developing countries for the Copenhagen talks to set aside proposed 2020 emissions targets, and instead aim for a climate treaty to expire in 2017. This would allow 2020 targets to be reassessed and potentially toughened up mid-decade.

Climate Institute chief executive John Connor, who commissioned the analysis, said it showed that signing up to inadequate 2020 emissions targets would lead to a global warming of 3 degrees, which would destroy the world's coral reefs….

Graphic by Mike Edwards, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.0 License