Academics warn of failing international carbon targets

A group of senior academics has today reiterated warnings that the greenhouse gas emission reduction pledges put forward by countries involved in international climate negotiations remain well short of what is required to stand a reasonable chance of meeting the stated goal of limiting temperature rises to less than 2ºC.

Timed to coincide with the opening of the latest round of UN-backed climate change negotiations in Bonn, Climate Strategies, an independent network of international climate academics hosted at the University of Cambridge, today released a new study analysing the likely impact of those emissions targets for 2020 currently pledged by industrialised and developing economies.

The report, entitled Analytic support to target-based negotiations, concludes that the pledged targets announced by countries as part of the Copenhagen Accord are insufficient to drive the robust price in the carbon market needed to peak emissions by 2020.

It warns that unless action is taken soon to deliver more ambitious cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, future generations will have to achieve daunting cuts in emissions if there is to be any hope of stabilising temperature increases at about two degrees above pre-industrial levels.

"There is clearly a discrepancy between agreements made by world leaders for reductions in emissions by 2050 needed for the world to be on a 2ºC path, and the comparatively weak targets pledged for 2020," said Murray Ward, who led the report. "The only way to square these two outcomes is that future generations will have to make very deep reductions on a year-by-year basis after 2020."

He added that many countries were guilty of ignoring the impact of the global recession on greenhouse gas emissions, and as a result were likely to find it easier than they expected to meet emission targets for 2020.

"Many of the existing pledges were set out before the full effects of the recession were realised," he explained. "It is critical that countries provide the best and latest data estimates for all the key variables that go into understanding exactly what level of effort is associated with their targets. This is needed to set the basis for a collective strengthening of targets based on circumstances known today, not those of early 2009 when many of the pledges emerged from capitals."

Under the Copenhagen Accord agreement, industrialised countries signing up to the deal agreed to announce carbon emission reduction targets for 2020, while developing economies agreed to set out carbon action plans.

The deal was praised in some quarters for securing a commitment from the US to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 17 per cent on 2005 levels by 2020, as well as pledges from large emerging economies such as China and India to reduce emissions relative to GDP.

However, climate scientists, environmental groups and many smaller countries have consistently maintained that the targets set out for 2020 will fail to ensure that global emissions peak within the next 10 years, increasing the risks of dangerous levels of climate change.

The latest report will further increase pressure on the negotiators gathered in Bonn this week to push for more ambitious emissions targets. A number of European nations including the UK are expected to lead calls for more demanding targets, after confirming recently that they want to see the EU upgrade its target for 2020 from a 20 per cent to a 30 per cent cut against 1990 levels.

However, any calls for more demanding targets are likely to falter following confirmation that the US Senate has dropped plans for a climate change bill that would have made its proposed emissions target legally binding.