Friday 18 December 2009

A COP15 'secret' that never was


Each day seems to bring more bad news out of Copenhagen as the United Nations battles to get the world's leaders to commit to concrete measures to combat predicted catastrophic climate change.
Thursday's glum tidings came through The Guardian newspaper which said it has a leaked UN document, concerning shortfalls between international pledges and actions required to keep the global temperature rise at no more than two degrees Celsius.
Except of course that wasn't actually 'news'. The United Nations Environment Programme had a similar pledges shortfall all mapped out on its website for the world to see.
With everyone from heads of government through to the media repeating the same 'old' information is it any wonder that we are all becoming quite jaded and sometimes close to downright cynical about the COP15 process on its final working day.



The total height of the bars represents the global emissions in a Business As Usual (BAU) scenario. It is only possible to calculate the global BAU for 2020. Therefore, no number for 2050 is shown.
Light yellow sections illustrate the global emission reductions if current low reduction pledges are implemented.
Dark yellow sections illustrate the global emissions reductions if current high reduction pledges are implemented.
Red sections represent the remaining gap between the current pledges and the emission levels needed to reach the 2°C goal.
The emission levels needed to achieve the 2˚C goal are illustrated by the green sections.

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