Nina Chestney PlanetArk 24 Nov 11;
Emissions Cuts Off Course To Halt Global Warming: UNEP Photo: Reuters/Stringer (CHINA - Tags: ENVIRONMENT ENERGY)
Smoke billows from a chimney at a coking factory in Hefei, Anhui province October 2, 2010.
Photo: Reuters/Stringer (CHINA - Tags: ENVIRONMENT ENERGY)
Greenhouse gas emissions in 2020 could rise more than forecast to between 6 billion and 11 billion tons above what is needed to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius, a United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) report showed on Wednesday.
The gap between countries' emissions cut pledges and what is needed to remain under what scientists say is the limit to avoid devastating effects of global warming has widened since its 2010 estimate of 5-9 billion tons as new data emerged, UNEP said.
Extreme weather is likely to worsen across the globe this century as the Earth's climate warms, U.N. scientists warned last week, but global carbon emissions rose to a record level last year.
"To stay within the 2 degree limit, global emissions will have to peak soon (and) total greenhouse gas emissions in 2050 must be about 46 percent lower than their 1990 level, or about 53 percent lower than their 2005 level," the report said.
Countries agreed last year in Cancun, Mexico, that deep emissions cuts were needed to hold an increase in global average temperature below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
Delegates from nearly 200 countries will meet in South Africa next week for a U.N. summit but only modest steps toward a broader climate deal are seen likely.
A 2 degrees C limit is only possible if emission levels are kept to around 44 billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2020. If nothing is done to limit emissions, they could rise to around 56 billion tons in 2020, UNEP said.
If countries' weakest pledges were implemented, emissions could recede to around 54.6 billion tons, leaving a gap of around 11 billion tonnes.
If nations make more ambitious pledges and U.N. climate talks adopt stricter rules on land use, forestry and surplus emissions credits, the figure could drop to around 50 billion tonnes, the report said.
Some scientists have warned emissions will have to peak before 2020 and fall to around 44 billion tonnes by 2020 to have a good chance of limiting temperature rise.
UNEP believes the emissions gap can be bridged by increasing energy efficiency and accelerating the deployment of renewable energy sources.
"There is abundant evidence that emissions reductions of between 14 to 20 billion tonnes ... are possible by 2020 and without any significant technical or financials breakthroughs," said Achim Steiner, UNEP's executive director.
"The window for addressing climate change is rapidly narrowing but equally the options for cost-effective action have never been so abundant," he said.
The report involved 55 scientists and experts across 15 countries.
(Editing by Janet Lawrence)
'Emissions gap' overshadows warming target: UNEP
AFP Yahoo News 24 Nov 11;
The gap between what is being pledged to tackle carbon emissions by 2020 and what is needed remains as wide as ever, perhaps wider, the UN said on Wednesday.
Reporting ahead of world climate talks, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said annual carbon emissions would have to fall by around 8.5 percent compared with 2010 to bring Earth on track for reaching a commonly-accepted goal for warming.
In 2010, the last UN climate conference in Cancun, Mexico, decided to limit the increase in global average temperature to two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) over pre-industrial levels.
The UNEP report sketched scenarios giving a "likely" chance -- more than 66 percent -- of meeting this target.
Annual emissions that in 2010 were 48 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e), a standard benchmark of greenhouse gases, would have to peak before 2020 and then fall to 44 billion tonnes of CO2e in that year, it said.
Yet the report also pointed to a possible widening in the "emissions gap," a term describing the difference between carbon-curbing pledges and what is needed to reach the 2 C (3.6 F) objective.
Last year, UNEP estimated that this "emissions gap" was set to be between five and nine billion tonnes in 2020.
Its new estimates are higher, at six to 11 billion tonnes, "but are still within the range of uncertainty of estimates," the updated report said.
The size of the gap depends on how rigorously pledges are implemented and monitored, it explained.
Assuming that the 2020 global carbon curb is reached, emissions would still have to be followed by a steep decline, of an average of 2.6 percent per year, UNEP cautioned.
"To have a likely chance of complying with the 2 C target, total greenhouse-gas emissions in 2050 must be about 46 percent lower than their 1990 level, or about 53 percent lower than their 2005 level," the report said.
But it also highlighted a range of strong options for reducing the gap.
Potential reductions of around 16 billion tonnes of CO2e in 2020 lie in efficiency gains in electricity production, industry, transport, construction and agriculture; in switching to renewable energy sources and installing carbon capture at power stations; and in cutting emissions from deforestation and agriculture.
Gains could also be made if countries toughened the conditions of pledges that so far are voluntary and minimised use of "forest sinks" and surplus credits on the carbon market to offset their own emissions.
The estimates are made in an update of a report, "Bridging the Gap," issued ahead of the November 28-December 9 talks in Durban, South Africa, of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
Set up nearly 20 years ago, the forum has been dogged by bickering over how to share out the burden of reducing carbon emissions, especially from coal, oil and gas, which are the backbone of the energy supply today.
Reacting to the report, the European Union's climate commissioner, Connie Hedegaard, said, "The bad news is that the gap is widening. The good news is that UNEP shows that it can still be closed.
"But its report underlines why the world does not need more time to think what to do. The world must get its act together."
Christiana Figueres, the UNFCCC's executive secretary, said, "Time is short, so we need to optimize the tools at hand.
"In Durban, governments need to resolve the immediate future of the Kyoto Protocol, define the longer path towards a global, binding climate agreement, launch the agreed institutional network to support developing countries in their response to the climate challenge and set out a path to deliver the long-term funding that will pay for that."
