Copenhagen Accord likely to lead to 3 C warming, scientists say

Greenwise Staff

21st April 2010

Copenhagen Accord pledges to control greenhouse gas emissions can't limit global warming to two degrees Celsius, scientists have warned.

Researchers at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) in Germany said today the Copenhagen Accord pledges made by countries since the UN Climate Change Conference last December might even lock the world into exceeding three degrees Celsius (C) warming.

The scientific analysis, published in the journal Nature, suggests that many nations – including European Union countries – have pledged smaller carbon cuts under the accord than they are already achieving.

Global emissions likely to rise 10 to 20 per cent by 2020

It calculates that under the Copenhagen Accord global emissions are likely to rise 10 to 20 per cent by 2020 and that the chance that warming will exceed 3 C by 2100 is greater than 50 per cent.

Describing the pledges as "paltry", the scientists conclude that the prospects of limiting global warming to 2 C are "in dire peril" and imply that waiting until after 2020 to impose deeper cuts is dangerous.

"It is like racing towards the cliff and hoping you stop just before it," said Dr Malte Meinshausen, one of the PIK team.

The Copenhagen Accord was clinched in the final hours of the UN climate summit last December between leaders of a handful of nations. It set a goal to limit warming to 2 C, but it set no binding global agreement on emissions cuts and no date for achieving the limit on the earth’s warming.

Instead, the accord includes voluntary emissions targets from 76 countries, which account for about 80 per cent of global industrial emissions. Many of those targets are expressed as a band with an upper and a lower end.

The PIK research concludes that in the absence of a binding international agreement, nations will probably meet only the lower ends of their emissions pledges.

The PIK team hopes that today’s research will encourage governments to reach a new global deal on climate change.

Chances of reaching climate change agreement this year are fading

However, the chance of reaching any type of climate change agreement this year is fading fast. This week, leading emitters attending the Major Economies Forum played down the chance of a deal being reached at the next UN Climate summit in Mexico later this year. Attention is now turning to the 2011 conference in South Africa.

The Kyoto Protocol, the current climate change treaty, expires in 2012.