The international
community will not meet agreed temperature targets unless it puts the brakes on
current levels of carbon emissions now, warn climate scientists.
The team of scientists
led by Dr Joeri Rogelj from the Institute for
Atmospheric and Climate Science in Zurich, analysed emission
scenarios to identify the likelihood of limiting global temperature rises to
2°C above pre-industrial levels.
Their analysis, published
online in today's Nature
Climate Science, shows global median CO2 equivalent emissions need
to peak and fall to 44 gigatonnes by 2020 to have a likely chance of meeting
targets set in Cancun.
"At the moment we
are about 48 gigatonnes [of CO2 equivalent] so we are at higher levels
globally," says study co-author Dr Malte Meinshausen, a German climate
scientist currently based at the University of
Melbourne.
To maintain the
two-degree limit beyond 2020, emissions would need to fall to a median of 20
gigatonnes by 2050, Meinshausen says.
"That means global
emissions have to peak within this decade and then have to go down again. At
the moment, although the world recognises the climate problem, we are producing
more and more emissions every year and accelerating the problem."
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