Economic recession has failed to curb rising emissions, undermining hope of keeping global warming to safe levels Photograph: Dave Reede/All Canada Photos/Corbis

Greenhouse gas emissions increased by a record amount last year, to the highest carbon output in history, putting hopes of holding global warming to safe levels all but out of reach, according to unpublished estimates from the International Energy Agency.

The shock rise means the goal of preventing a temperature rise of more than 2 degrees Celsius – which scientists say is the threshold for potentially “dangerous climate change” – is likely to be just “a nice Utopia”, according to Fatih Birol, chief economist of the IEA. It also shows the most serious global recession for 80 years has had only a minimal effect on emissions, contrary to some predictions.

Last year, a record 30.6 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide poured into the atmosphere, mainly from burning fossil fuel – a rise of 1.6Gt on 2009, according to estimates from the IEA regarded as the gold standard for emissions data.

“I am very worried. This is the worst news on emissions,” Birol told the Guardian. “It is becoming extremely challenging to remain below 2 degrees. The prospect is getting bleaker. That is what the numbers say.”

Professor Lord Stern of the London School of Economics, the author of the influential Stern Report into the economics of climate change for the Treasury in 2006, warned that if the pattern continued, the results would be dire. “These figures indicate that [emissions] are now close to being back on a ‘business as usual’ path. According to the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's] projections, such a path … would mean around a 50% chance of a rise in global average temperature of more than 4C by 2100,” he said.

“Such warming would disrupt the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people across the planet, leading to widespread mass migration and conflict. That is a risk any sane person would seek to drastically reduce.”

Birol said disaster could yet be averted, if governments heed the warning. “If we have bold, decisive and urgent action, very soon, we still have a chance of succeeding,” he said.

The IEA has calculated that if the world is to escape the most damaging effects of global warming, annual energy-related emissions should be no more than 32Gt by 2020. If this year’s emissions rise by as much as they did in 2010, that limit will be exceeded nine years ahead of schedule, making it all but impossible to hold warming to a manageable degree.

Emissions from energy fell slightly between 2008 and 2009, from 29.3Gt to 29Gt, due to the financial crisis. A small rise was predicted for 2010 as economies recovered, but the scale of the increase has shocked the IEA. “I was expecting a rebound, but not such a strong one,” said Birol, who is widely regarded as one of the world’s foremost experts on energy.

John Sauven, the executive director of Greenpeace UK, said time was running out. “This news should shock the world. Yet even now politicians in each of the great powers are eyeing up extraordinary and risky ways to extract the world’s last remaining reserves of fossil fuels – even from under the melting ice of the Arctic. You don’t put out a fire with gasoline. It will now be up to us to stop them.”

Most of the rise – about three-quarters – has come from developing countries, as rapidly emerging economies have weathered the financial crisis and the recession that has gripped most of the developed world.

But he added that, while the emissions data was bad enough news, there were other factors that made it even less likely that the world would meet its greenhouse gas targets.

• About 80% of the power stations likely to be in use in 2020 are either already built or under construction, the IEA found. Most of these are fossil fuel power stations unlikely to be taken out of service early, so they will continue to pour out carbon – possibly into the mid-century. The emissions from these stations amount to about 11.2Gt, out of a total of 13.7Gt from the electricity sector. These “locked-in” emissions mean savings must be found elsewhere.

“It means the room for manoeuvre is shrinking,” warned Birol.

• Another factor that suggests emissions will continue their climb is the crisis in the nuclear power industry. Following the tsunami damage at Fukushima, Japan and Germany have called a halt to their reactor programmes, and other countries are reconsidering nuclear power.

“People may not like nuclear, but it is one of the major technologies for generating electricity without carbon dioxide,” said Birol. The gap left by scaling back the world’s nuclear ambitions is unlikely to be filled entirely by renewable energy, meaning an increased reliance on fossil fuels.

• Added to that, the United Nations-led negotiations on a new global treaty on climate change have stalled. “The significance of climate change in international policy debates is much less pronounced than it was a few years ago,” said Birol.

He urged governments to take action urgently. “This should be a wake-up call. A chance [of staying below 2 degrees] would be if we had a legally binding international agreement or major moves on clean energy technologies, energy efficiency and other technologies.”

Governments are to meet next week in Bonn for the next round of the UN talks, but little progress is expected.

Sir David King, former chief scientific adviser to the UK government, said the global emissions figures showed that the link between rising GDP and rising emissions had not been broken. “The only people who will be surprised by this are people who have not been reading the situation properly,” he said.

Forthcoming research led by Sir David will show the west has only managed to reduce emissions by relying on imports from countries such as China.

Another telling message from the IEA’s estimates is the relatively small effect that the recession – the worst since the 1930s – had on emissions. Initially, the agency had hoped the resulting reduction in emissions could be maintained, helping to give the world a “breathing space” and set countries on a low-carbon path. The new estimates suggest that opportunity may have been missed.

Source Guardian

“Assuming no new climate policies,” the EIA says, “worldwide increases in output per capita and relatively moderate population growth overwhelm projected improvements in energy intensity and carbon intensity.”

EIA’s predictions may not come true for two reasons. First, China, the country that emits the most greenhouse gases (GHG), pledged to reduce emissions by 40 to 45 percent by 2020 from 2005 levels. Second, last week, companies from China and Finland signed 12 clean technology deals with a value of about $250 million. 

Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang said of the deals, “As China is experiencing rapid industrialization and urbanization, we have to build a resource-saving and environmentally friendly society as soon as possible.” He added, “Finland has advanced capability in clean tech innovation and application, so there’s great potential for cooperation between the two countries in this regard. I hope our companies will grasp the opportunity, strengthen development and application of clean tech and carry out more reciprocal cooperation.”

What about America?

What about the U.S., the second largest emitter of GHGs? Unfortunately, the outlook for climate change legislation to pass in Congress this year is not sunny with November elections coming up for Congress followed by the December break for Congress.

“There is little chance anything will happen this year,” said Tom Lewis, chief executive. “Healthcare legislation was passed because the president made a major push but no one is willing to take a major step prior to the mid-term elections,” Lewis said. “The Democrats are in line to lose a number of seats and I don’t see a passionate push between now and November 2 to get this over the finishing line,” he added.

President Obama said he hopes bill will pass this year because the oil spill highlights the need for energy reform, but he may have used up his political influence to pass healthcare reform legislation in March.

“Obama may have used all his political capital to get healthcare over the finishing line,” said Chelsea Maxwell, managing partner of the Clark Group and former senior climate advisor to Senator John Warner.

A recent article in the Guardian, a British newspaper, hit the proverbial nail on the head when it comes to the U.S. government and the oil industry. The article says that politicians have “allowed themselves to be seduced by the cheap petrol and tax provided by BP.” The article added that in the U.S. “big oil firms, like big banks are too big to bury.” There is one factor the article overlooks: the American people, who are disgusted by the disaster in the Gulf, and BP’s bungling of it.

Source Care2

There’s no time like now to be an activist!

Eighty-one tons of mercury is emitted into the atmosphere each year as a result of electric power generation. Every square mile of ocean hosts 46,000 pieces of floating plastic.

Here it comes … 

Every second, 10,000 gallons of gasoline are burned in the US. Each year, Americans use 2.2 billion pounds of pesticides.

Wait for it … 

Every two seconds, a human being starves to death. Every 46 seconds, a woman is raped in America. Every day, 29,158 children under the age of five die from preventable causes – every single day.

We’re almost there … 

Ninety percent of the large fish in the ocean and 80 percent of the world’s forests are gone. Each day, 200,000 acres of rainforest are destroyed, over 100 plant and animal species go extinct, and 13 million tons of toxic chemicals released across the globe.

What an amazing time to be an activist … 

No, I’m not being cynical. I’m simply listening to the sound of opportunity knocking … kicking down the damn door, you might say.

When else in all of human history has there been a time when we were in better position to shape the future? Ecosystems are screaming for mercy and our land base is practically an endangered species. What we do (or don’t do) in the next few years could quite possibly tilt us all toward either the point of no return or a far more sane form of society. In other words, each and every one of us can take part – right now – in creating the most important social changes ever imagined. Here’s how:

1. How to Be a Good Organizer

a) Spend some time thinking about trees.
b) Imagine what clear cutting looks like, sounds like and feels like.
c) Remind yourself that 80 percent of the world’s forests are gone.
d) Be a good organizer.

2. How to Find Like-Minded Comrades Ready to Start Right Now

a) Go to the beach.
b) Smell the salty air and listen to the waves.
c) Remind yourself that 90 percent of the large fish in the ocean are gone.
d) Find like-minded comrades ready to start right now.

3. How to Plan a Protest That Does More Than March

a) Remind yourself that 200,000 acres of rainforest are destroyed each day. Picture a planet devoid of rainforests. Picture a human body without lungs.
b) Remind yourself that a woman is raped every 46 seconds in America. Visualize the terror and trauma of these experiences.
c) Remind yourself that 29,158 children under the age of five die from preventable causes each day. Imagine the feelings of grief, sorrow and loss.
d) Plan a protest that does more than march.

4. How to Give a Rousing Speech That Results in Immediate Direct Action

a) Find a quiet place.
b) Close your eyes and breathe deeply.
c) Think about animals in slaughterhouses and laboratories. Think about humans in prisons. Think about civilians in a war zone. Think about someone you love dying of cancer caused by corporate-created toxins.
d) Give a rousing speech that results in immediate direct action.

5. How to Bring Down the Dominant Culture

a) Ask yourself if you’re content with your relatively high quality of life being possible thanks to the poor quality of life of so many others elsewhere.
b) Ask yourself if you’re content with your relative freedom being possible thanks to the oppression of so many others elsewhere.
c) Accept that we are all accomplices to the perpetual global crime called “civilization.”
d) Bring down the dominant culture.

This isn’t about skin color, gender, or what parcel of geography you happen to have been born on. I’m not talking about party affiliations, incremental reform or what sky god you’ve chosen to worship. It’s all about recognizing a crisis and taking the appropriate measures.

We’re on the brink of economic, social and environmental collapse. What an extraordinary time to be alive. How lucky are we? We’ve been trusted with the most vital mission of all time: survival.

Officials wonder if maybe the environment could find some time in its busy schedule to refreeze a few glaciers.

WASHINGTON—The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency called a press conference Monday to publicly denounce the environment for blatantly refusing to pull its weight in mankind’s ongoing efforts at ecological conservation.

“For 40 years, we have worked tirelessly to ensure the health and safety of our natural environment,” a visibly angered EPA administrator Lisa Jackson told reporters. “But this can only work when it’s a give-and-take. If the environment won’t even meet us halfway by regenerating a rain forest or two, or pumping out some clean air and water every once in a while, then what’s the point of us trying?”

Added Jackson, “I’m as committed to saving the earth as anyone, but for crying out loud, when is the earth going to hold up its end of the bargain?”

According to an EPA report, most of the environment’s day-to-day processes can be categorized as rude and inconsiderate, in particular its selfish overreliance on “absolutely, perfectly clean soil” for sustainable growth, and its continual inability to act in good faith and adapt to rising carbon dioxide levels.

The EPA also accused the environment of creating more work for the overburdened agency by stubbornly refusing to break down and absorb plastic and other synthetic materials, and producing rare species that can only survive in very specific, excessively fragile ecosystems.

“We’re putting in a lot of effort here with recycling and hybrid cars, so a little reciprocity from the environment would be appreciated,” Jackson said. “God forbid the oceans replenish their own fish. And would it really be so much trouble for the earth’s collective biospheres to pitch in and come up with a clean fuel alternative for use in our homes and vehicles? It’s the environment’s glaciers we’re busting our asses trying to save, after all.”

Continued Jackson, “The environment needs to realize that mankind may not always be around to clean up its messes.”

Based on recent projections pointing to a high rate of extreme weather and accelerated climate change, EPA scientists have concluded that the least the environment could do is cut back on natural disasters, and perhaps try to grow some crops to help save the 1 billion people who go starving every day.

A nice new waterfall here and there reportedly wouldn’t hurt either, officials said.

“I think everybody is getting a little fed-up with the hurricanes, earthquakes, and tsunamis,” EPA engineer Thomas Bergman said. “Not to mention UV rays and acid rain. And, not to be petty, but shark attacks? Mankind doesn’t have enough on its plate already without having to worry about getting eaten alive by killer sharks? I’m sorry, but that is just unacceptable.”

Added Bergman, “The environment may be in peril, but it has no right to treat us like animals.”

In an impassioned final warning, Administrator Jackson announced that if the environment did not start helping to stave off global catastrophe soon, it could face “serious repercussions” from humanity in the coming years, including massive Styrofoam-cup usage, oil spills, and exponentially higher emission rates.

“It becomes very frustrating when you give, and you give, and you give, and you get nothing in return,” said Jackson, holding back tears. “And after you’ve exhausted yourself from all that giving, you leave work and have two measly hours of sunlight before it gets dark or starts pouring down rain on you out of nowhere. It’s like the environment doesn’t even care. And what’s with the leaves everywhere? Every fall, with the goddamn leaves! What are we, your servants? We’re supposed to pick up after you? Jesus, if I find one more leaf or fallen branch clogging up my gutters, I swear to God, I’m going to snap.”

“Stupid environment,” Jackson added. “Sometimes I wish it would just go away.”

Source The Onion

Additional reading ‘Climate change is coming to you as it did to a dear friend of mine.’

If further proof were needed that, despite their pious words, our political leaders do not take climate change seriously, the recent population debate provides it.

The argument over whether we should aim for 36 million people by the middle of the century is conducted as if the world in 2050 were going to be a richer version of what we have now. This is the grand delusion of the climate change debate.

None of our political or business leaders is listening to what the scientists are saying. More surprisingly, nor are our leading demographers, economists and Treasury officials. All have joined the debate but seem oblivious to the sort of world the growing population is expected to inhabit.

In truth, Australians in 2050 will be living in a nation transformed by a changing climate, with widespread doubt over whether we will make it to the end of the century in a land that is recognisably Australian.

Over the next decades hundreds of thousands of Australians will try to escape those parts of the continent that have become too unpleasant or dangerous to live in and migrate to those that have better water supplies, fewer days of extreme heat and adequate protection from floods, fires and rising seas.

What will drive these waves of internal migration? No one has studied it in detail, but the primary factors are well known.

The Garnaut Review anticipates the drying of the Murray-Darling Basin will end irrigated agriculture and reduce the population of the region. Water shortages in Perth and Adelaide will make them less liveable.

Elsewhere, severe impacts of a changing climate on industries as diverse as livestock, wheat farming, wine-growing and tourism will cause some regions to decline as employment opportunities shrink.

Many low-lying coastal regions will become unsuitable for habitation as seas rise and storm surges damage infrastructure, commercial buildings and housing. Increases in the number and intensity of extreme floods – especially in Queensland – will render some areas unsuitable for development. Declining services and the difficulty of insuring against losses will induce many to move. The high risk of extreme fires will make many regional areas too dangerous for habitation.

Many Australians will be on the move. But where will they go? Many will be leaving the wide brown land for the narrow green strip down the eastern seaboard, and many more will be heading from the north of the green strip to cooler southern climes.

As less of the continent is suitable for human habitation, the pressure on southern cities and regional areas will become intense. And it won’t let up any time soon.

We are also likely to face more pressure to accept people displaced from low-lying Pacific islands inundated by rising seas. Tuvalu is already asking Australia to accept homeless islanders as its atoll sinks. In 2008, the Maldives government said it was looking to buy real estate to establish a new homeland and Australia was on the list of potential targets.

We will be lucky if we can restrict our obligations to climate refugees from our immediate region and not have to deal with a tide of people forced out of the mega-cities of south-east Asia and China, where 100 million people will be displaced by a metre rise in sea-levels, the expected rise this century even if the world could agree on drastic emission cuts.

Yet the population debate is carried on as if all this is irrelevant, as if Australia in 2050 or 2100 will be as it is today but with higher living standards.

It is not only the impacts of a changing climate that escape our leaders’ comprehension, but the implications of a rapidly expanding population for climate policy.

The Labor government has committed to reducing Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions by 60 per cent by 2050, from about 500 million tonnes to about 200 million tonnes. With a population of 22 million that means we would be allowed nine tonnes each every year.

If there are 36 million of us we will be allowed 5.5 tonnes each.

In truth, 60 per cent is not enough. However much we are forced to cut our emissions, doubling the population means halving the emission we are allowed each year.

So when Kevin Rudd says he believes in ”a big Australia” he is promising us a future with many more people squeezed into an ever-shrinking patchwork of liveable areas. The quality of life we value so much will become a scarcer commodity.

Clive Hamilton is the author of Requiem for a Species and a panellist in a Sydney Writers’ Festival event on May 21: ”Have We All Been Conned?”

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Field work conducted in Canada by the study’s co-author Ben Bond-Lamberty suggests that the release of carbon in the soils of the world’s tundra and northern boreal forests — about one-third of all terrestrial carbon — is already underway, and he said soils all over the world are releasing more carbon dioxide as temperatures rise.

Bond-Lamberty and co-author Allison Thomson at Maryland’s Joint Global Change Research Institute analyzed data from 439 studies on soil respiration conducted in 1,434 locations in every corner of the world and found that plant growth, decomposition and microbial activity in the soil release about 98 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year, about 10 times the amount that humans release by burning fossil fuels.

That phenomenon by itself is not worrisome because soil has always released the gas as part of a complex carbon cycle where released carbon is absorbed by the world’s oceans and growing plants in equilibrium.

“It’s not surprising that higher temperatures have given rise to greater soil respiration,” said Bond-Lamberty. “That’s just basic science.”

But the amount of carbon being released by soils has increased by .01 per cent a year over the past 20 years as the world’s temperature has increased and may be liberating carbon that has been stored in peat bogs, boreal forests and frozen soils for thousands of years.

The danger is that the release of so-called “old carbon” could create a positive feedback loop in which rising temperatures lead to the release of more carbon which in turn raises the world’s temperature leading to accelerated carbon release, Thomson said.

Canada’s arctic is one of the world’s largest deposits of old carbon.

“These soils are cold and wet so things don’t decompose much and so huge carbon stores have built up there,” said Bond-Lamberty. It’s possible that the carbon cycle has simply speeded up and that those soils are not losing carbon, he said, “but it’s not probable.”

Since 1989, the amount of carbon dioxide being released by the soil has increased by two per cent in temperate zones, three per cent in tropical zones and as much as seven per cent in the higher latitudes, such as Canada’s arctic. The arctic data showed troubling inconsistencies, however, because there isn’t much data collected in the region.

“In tropical soils the carbon cycle is simply accelerating, but in the boreal soils respiration is both accelerating and losing stored carbon,” Bond-Lamberty explained.

Old carbon has a unique chemical signature, so the next step is to determine how much of the carbon being released by warming arctic soils is old carbon being added to what was already circulating in the atmosphere.

Rising carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is widely regarded as a contributor to global warming.

“Old carbon is a big, big pool, so even a tiny change in the rate it is being lost at is a big flux,” said Bond-Lamberty. And once the process of positive feedback begins, it will be difficult to stop.

“If by some magic we became a carbon neutral society overnight, there is a big carbon debt already in play; we have a couple of centuries of temperature rise and big change ahead of us regardless,” he predicted.

Source

The release of more than 370 billion tons of carbon (GtC) from buried early biospheres, adding more than one half of the original carbon inventory of the atmosphere (~590 GtC), as well as the depletion of vegetation, have triggered a fundamental shift in the state of the atmosphere. Raising atmospheric CO2 level at a rate of 2 ppm/year, a pace unprecedented in the geological record, with the exception of the effects of CO2 released from craters excavated by large asteroid impacts, the deleterious effects of pollution and deforestation have reached a geological dimension, tracking toward conditions which existed on Earth in the mid-Pliocene, about 2.8 million years ago.
Lost all too often in the climate debate is an appreciation of the delicate balance between the physical and chemical state of the atmosphere-ocean-land system and the evolving biosphere, which controls the emergence, survival and demise of species, including humans. By contrast to Venus, with its thick blanket of CO2 and sulphur dioxide greenhouse atmosphere, exerting extreme pressure (90 bars) at the surface, or Mars with its thin (0.01 bar) CO2 atmosphere, the presence in the Earth’s atmosphere of trace concentrations of greenhouse gases (CO2, methane, nitric oxides, ozone) modulates surface temperatures in the range of -89 and +57.7 degrees Celsius and a mean of 14 degrees Celsius, allowing the presence of liquid water and thereby of life.
Forming a thin breathable veneer only slightly more than one thousand the diameter of Earth, and evolving both gradually as well as through major perturbations with time, the Earth’s atmosphere acts as a lungs of the biosphere, allowing an exchange of carbon gases and oxygen with plants and animals, which in turn affect the atmosphere, for example through release of methane and photosynthetic oxygen (Figure 1).
CO2 is 28 times more soluble in water than is oxygen. Above critical threshold CO2 becomes toxic for certain organisms. Marine organisms are more sensitive to changes in CO2 levels than are terrestrial organisms. Excess CO2 reduces the ability of respiratory pigments to oxygenate tissues, and makes body fluids more acidic, thereby hampering the production of carbonate hard parts like shells. Relatively modest but sustained increases in CO2 concentrations hamper the synthesis of proteins, reduce fertilization rates, and produce deformities in calcareous hard parts. The observed pattern of marine extinctions is consistent with hypercapnia (excessive levels of CO2), with related extinction events.
When the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere rises above a critical threshold, climate shifts to a different state. Any significant increase in the level of carbon gases triggers powerful feedbacks. These include ice melt/warm water interaction, decline of ice reflection (albedo) and increase in infrared absorption by exposed water. Further release of CO2 from the oceans and from drying and burning vegetation shifts global climate zones toward the poles, warms the oceans and induces ocean acidification.
The essential physics of the infrared absorption/emission resonance of greenhouse molecules is indicated by observations in nature and laboratory studies, as portrayed in the relations between atmospheric CO2 and mean global temperature projections (Figure 2).
During most of Earth history the oxygen-poor composition of the atmosphere resulted in dominance of reduced carbon species in the air and the oceans, including methane and carbon monoxide, allowing mainly algae and bacteria to exist in the oceans (Figure 3). It is commonly held that, about 0.7 billion years ago, in the wake of the Marinoan glaciation (so-called “Snowball Earth”), oxygenation of low-temperature water allowed development of new oxygen-binding proteins and thereby of multicellular animals, followed by development of a rich variety of organisms – the “Cambrian explosion.”
The present state of the biosphere, allowing survival of large mammals and of humans on the continents, developed when CO2 levels fell below about 500 ppm some 34 million years ago (end Eocene). At this stage, as well as following warm periods in the Oligocene (c. 25 million years ago) and mid-Miocene (about 15 million years ago), development of the Antarctic ice sheet led to a fundamental change in the global climate regime. About 2.8 million years ago (mid-Pliocene) the Greenland ice sheet and the Arctic Sea ice began to form, with further decline in global temperatures expressed through glacial-interglacial cycles regulated by orbital forcing (Milankovic cycles), with atmospheric CO2 levels oscillating between 180 and 280 ppm CO2 (Figure 4). These conditions allowed the emergence of humans in Africa and t heir migration all over the world (Figure 5).
), based on proxy studies (stomata fossil leaf pore densities; 13C isotopes in carbonate nodules in fossil soil), indicating the onset age of the Antarctic ice sheet (c. 34 Ma), West Antarctic ice sheet and Northern Hemisphere ice sheets (c. 3 Ma). Note the glacial-interglacial approximate upper limits at 500 ppm CO2.”]
Recent paleoclimate studies, using multiple proxies (soil carbonate δ13C, alkenones, boron/calcium, stomata leaf pores), indicate that the current CO2 level of 388 ppm and CO2-equivalent level of 460 ppm (which includes the methane factor), commit warming above pre-industrial levels to 3 to 4 degrees C in the tropics and 10 degrees C in polar regions, tracking toward an ice-free Earth.
Small human clans post-3 million years-ago responded to changing climates through migration within and out of Africa. Homo sapiens emerged during the glacial period preceding the 124 thousand years-old Emian interglacial, when temperatures rose by about 1 degree C and sea levels by 6-8 meters relative to pre-industrial. The development of agriculture and thereby human civilization had to wait until climate stabilized about 8000 years ago, when large scale irrigation along the great river valleys (the Nile, Euphrates, Hindus and Yellow River) became possible.
Since the 18th century mean global temperature has risen by about 0.8 degrees C. Another 0.5 degrees C is masked by industrial-emitted aerosols (SO2), and further rise ensues from current melting of the ice sheets and sea ice. The polar regions, acting as the “thermostats” of the Earth, are the source of the cold air current vortices and the cold ocean currents, such as the Humboldt and California current, which keep the Earth’s overall temperature balance, much as the blood stream regulates the body’s temperature and the supply of oxygen.
At 4 degrees Celsius advanced to total melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets leads to sea levels tens of meters higher than at present. Further rise of CO2-e above 500 ppm and mean global temperatures above 4 degrees C can only lead toward greenhouse Earth conditions such as existed during the Cretaceous andearly Cainozoic (Figure 4).
A rise of atmospheric CO2 concentration triggers feedback effects due to warming, desiccation and burning of vegetation, releasing more CO2. The onset of methane release from polar bogs and sediments is of major concern. Ice/melt water interaction proceeds as melt water melts more ice, ice loss results in albedo loss and exposed water absorb infrared heat, resulting in an amplified feedback cycle. Because CO2 is cumulative, with atmospheric residence time on the scale of centuries to millennia, stabilization of the climate through small incremental reduction in emission may not be sufficient to avoid runaway climate change and possible tipping points.
Climate change is appropriately described as a global oxygenation event affecting geological carbon deposits as well as the present biosphere. At 2 ppm/year the pace of carbon oxidation exceeds the highest recorded geological rate of 0.4 ppm/year at the Paleocene-Eocene boundary at 55 Ma, when about 2000 GtC were burnt, triggering an extinction of species.
Sea level rise constitutes a critical parameter which reflects all other components of climate change. Since the early 20th century the rate of sea level rise increased from about 1 mm/year to about 3.5 mm/year (1993 – 2009 mean rate 3.2+/-0.4 mm/year), representing a nearly fourfold increase since the onset of the industrial age (Figure 6).
The Earth poles are warming at rates 3 to 4 times faster than low latitudes (Figure 7). The most detailed satellite information available shows that ice sheets in Greenland and western Antarctica are shrinking and in some places are already in runaway melt mode [10]. A new study, using 50 million laser readings from a NASA satellite, calculates changes in the height of the vulnerable but massive ice sheets and found them especially worse at their edges, where warmer water eats away from below. In some parts of Antarctica, ice sheets have been losing 30 feet a year in thickness since 2003.

The consequences of open ended rise in atmospheric CO2 are manifest in the geological record (Frontispiece). The world is in a lag period, when increasing atmospheric energy is expressed by intense hurricanes, increased pressure at mid-latitude high pressure zones and shift of climate zones toward the poles. With ensuing desertification of temperate zones, i.e. southern Europe, southern Australia, southern Africa, the desiccated forests become prey to firestorms, such as in Victoria and California.
There is nowhere the 6.5 billion of contemporary humans can go, not even the barren planets into the study of which space agencies have been pouring more funding than governments allocate for environmental mitigation to date. At 460 ppm CO2-equivalent, the climate is tracking close to the upper stability limit of the Antarctic ice sheet, defined at approximately 500 ppm [5,7]. Once transcended, mitigation measures would hardly be able to re-form the cryosphere.
According to Joachim Schellnhuber, Director of the Potsdam Climate Impacts Institute and advisor to the German government: “We’re simply talking about the very life support system of this planet”.
Humans can not argue with the physics and chemistry of the atmosphere. What is needed are urgent measures including
Deep cuts in carbon emissions.
Parallel Fast track transformation to non-polluting energy utilities – solar, solar-thermal, wind, tide, geothermal, hot rocks.
Global reforestation and re-vegetation campaigns, including application of biochar.
The alternative does not bear contemplation.

Source

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Their comments after EU ambassadors met in Brussels confirmed the 27-nation bloc’s commitment to unilateral target carbon dioxide emissions to 20 percent below 1990 levels over the next decade.

Some EU countries such as Poland, Italy, Cyprus and Malta had opposed making the more ambitious conditional offer because of concerns that it would be too costly for industry.

“Italy and Poland said at the meeting that they were concerned but they wouldn’t stand in the way,” an EU envoy said.

Before United Nations-sponsored climate talks in Copenhagen in December, the EU offered to deepen its cuts to 30 percent of 1990 levels if other rich countries made similar efforts.

Ambassadors agreed the EU should sign up to the accord with the 20 percent cuts in a letter to be sent to the U.N. on Thursday, but that the 30 percent conditional offer should still be made, even if the conditions behind it are far from being met.

The meeting in the Danish capital ended without agreement on binding cuts to climate-warming carbon dioxide emissions, leaving countries until January 31 to submit their own plans.

Experts say the total cuts offered there by rich countries amount to no more than 18 percent and fall far short of the 25-40 percent that U.N. scientists outline as necessary to avert dangerous climate change.

The world is on track for temperatures to rise to 3.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by the end of this century, which would bring catastrophic melting of ice sheets and rising seas, some scientists say.

Britain, Denmark and the Netherlands were among the countries that defended the 30 percent offer.

“The UK remains committed to the conditional offer of 30 percent to stay on the table to ensure that we do not lose the momentum that has been generated over the last few months,” said an official from Britain’s Department of Energy and Climate Change.

Source Reuters

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The Government’s formal submission to the Copenhagen Accord – the widely criticised agreement hatched between the US and major developing countries at the conference last month – pledges to cut emissions between 5 and 25 per cent below 2000 levels. It is the same range taken to the December meeting, bucking some expectations the Government would commit to a specific target.

Climate Change Minister Penny Wong said the Government would stick to its minimalist position unless there was substantial and verifiable action internationally.

If the impasse in global climate negotiations is not resolved in 2011, the Government will set a 5 per cent target under its proposed emissions trading scheme, giving business certainty for the planned start of full trading in July 2012.

Green groups criticised the Government for putting the onus on developing countries to prove they are serious about tackling climate change before Australia moves beyond 5 per cent.

Several analyses have estimated that commitments made in the lead-up to last year’s Copenhagen summit would trigger Australia signing up to about a 15 per cent cut.

But Senator Wong said Australia’s position ”was consistent with our commitments to do no more and no less than the rest of the world”.

The target would not be increased above 5 per cent until:

? Global climate policies become ”sufficiently clear”, including specific targets from major rich nations and verifiable climate policies from China and India.

? The credibility of other countries’ commitments is established through either a ”robust” agreement at the next major climate conference in Mexico in November or verifiable commitments to action by the US, India and China and other major emitters.

? The assumptions underpinning global emissions accounting and carbon markets are clear.

It is the first time Australia has placed demands on specific countries in setting out its conditions for an emissions cut of greater than 5 per cent. It suggests Australia will not increase its target unless climate legislation passes the US Senate.

Interpretation of the conditions will also depend on the definition of ”verifiable” emissions cuts. China and India have fiercely resisted demands they allow external scrutiny of their emissions, agreeing only to pass on their own measurements to be followed by ”international consultations and analysis”.

Former government climate adviser Ross Garnaut last night said it was appropriate that the Government kept to its 5-25 per cent range until it had seen that other countries had confirmed their promises in formal submissions, due by January 31.

The announcement of the accord targets comes as the Government is set to introduce its revamped emissions trading legislation next Tuesday.

Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard refused to be drawn on whether the Government would bring back the legislation if it was defeated so it could be put to a joint sitting if there was a successful double dissolution.

Source Sydney Morning Herald

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Janos Pasztor, the top climate adviser to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, however, said the commitments, which largely reaffirm their previous pledges, make it highly unlikely the world can meet the goal set at the Copenhagen climate conference of preventing temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels.

“It is likely, according to a number of analysts, that if we add up all those figures that were being discussed around Copenhagen, if they’re all implemented, it will still be quite difficult to reach the 2 degrees,” Pasztor told The Associated Press.

“That is the bottom line, but you can look at it negatively and positively. The negative part is that it’s not good enough,” he said. “The positive side is that for the first time, we have a goal, a clear goal that we’re all working toward, and we know what the commitments are. … Before we would just talk.”

Pasztor said some 50 nations – including China, the United States and 27-member European Union _sent in their commitment letters by the Feb. 1 deadline set at the Copenhagen climate conference in December. More such letters were expected to continue trickling in over the next several days.

The goals submitted to the United Nations outline voluntary plans for rolling back their heat-trapping gases from fossil fuel burning.

The commitment letters were intended to get an idea of how far the nations most responsible for global warming might be willing to go, in a step toward pushing for a legally binding pact later this year.

China has pledged to reduce the growth rate of its emissions – not make absolute cuts – by up to 45 percent from 2005 levels by 2020. India also pledged to reduce the growth rate of its emissions by up to 25 percent from 2005 levels by 2020.

The United States stuck to President Barack Obama’s pledge to cut its absolute carbon emissions by about 17 percent by 2020 below 2005 levels – setting a precedent for China and India to scrap the baseline 1990 emissions levels used in previous U.N. climate negotiations.

The European Union has pledged to cut its carbon emissions 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, and to cut 30 percent if other nations deepen their reductions.

The Copenhagen Accord brokered by Obama, and more than two dozen other world leaders fell far short of the legally binding treaty that had been the goal of the two-week conference, but included collective commitments by developed countries to provide billions of dollars in emergency funds to help poor countries adapt to climate change.

The three-page document was only “noted” by the full conference in Copenhagen after five countries blocked its formal adoption by consensus. U.N. officials now consider the accord a political tool for trying again to negotiate a binding climate treaty at the U.N. climate conference in Mexico City at the end of the year.

Critics say the accord was a failure, with world leaders missing a crucial opportunity to commit to greenhouse gas cuts required to stave off projections of dangerous melting of glaciers and ice-caps, flooding of low-lying coastal cities and island nations, more extreme weather events, drought in Africa and other continents, and the spread of diseases.

Scientists believe global emissions must be cut in half by mid-century.

Alden Meyer, policy director at the Union of Concerned Scientists, called the “political commitment” among nations to hold global average temperature increases to less than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) one of the breakthroughs at Copenhagen.

“This is the first time countries are committed to this goal, that’s the good news,” he said. “The bad news, of course, is the pledges that have been put on the table to date don’t put us on track to meet that goal, and would make it very difficult economically and politically after 2020 to catch up.”’

Source Forbes

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