The deadline for going green and and saving the planet from dangerous warming was dramatically spelled out at the Copenhagen climate conference yesterday.
If we are not making drastic cuts in pollution by 2020, costing everybody on the planet up to £150-a-year, we have virtually no chance of limiting temperature rises to 2C.
Only geo-engineering solutions such as covering the planet in artificial trees or reflecting sunlight back into space with mirrors could save us. They are still on the drawing board without any proof they will work
And even the most optimistic deal in Copenhagen might not be enough to save us from dangerous warming above 2C.
Scientists from the Met Office and Hadley Centre have just run 729 emission scenarios through computers and found just how tough reaching the targets will be - even with a climate deal.
Dr Jason Lowe, head of mitigation advice at the Met Office, said: "None of the modelling I have seen has an easy answer to the question of limiting warming to 2C. What this research says is that there are pathways which lead to 2C, the Copenhagen goal, but those pathways appear very challenging in terms of time and rate of emissions reductions.
"The only way you can achieve the 2C target is to peak no later than 2020 and cut emissions by at least 4 per cent every year after that. If you don't manage to do that you will have to turn to geo-engineering.
No comments:
Post a Comment