Two degree target is out of reach says former UN Climate Chief Yvo de Boer, former executive secretary of the UN's Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The UN's former climate chief says the global warming pledge he helped set at the Copenhagen Summit little more than two years ago is already unattainable.
The target was set by a core group of countries in the final stormy hours at the Copenhagen Summit in December 2009 and became enshrined by the forum at Cancun, Mexico a year later.
But more and more scientists are warning that the objective is slipping away without radical, early cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions. Some consider the goal to be a dangerous political mirage, for Earth is now on track for 3C (5.4 F) of warming or more.
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new study now shows that a 3C/5.4F rise is "plausible" by 2050
Many organizations are concerned about the effects of global warming. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts as most likely a 3C rise in global surface temperature by 2050. The UK’s chief scientific advisor Professor King has warned (PDF) that such a rise would put some 400 million people at risk of starvation. Even the Pentagon, that least of all greenie organisations, wrote a report in 2004 that highlighted predictions of:
* Severe water shortages
* Severe energy shortages
* Mega droughts and floods
* Nuclear conflict,
* Famine
* Widespread rioting
* Wars over water and energy resources
* At 150 million migrating environmental refugees
As you can see from the list above all the Pentagons predictions except for Nuclear conflict have come to be. In some cases they did overstate but overall their predictions have been spot on.
We have had scientific information on anthropological climate change since the 1950's. Here is a very important video with Dr. Mike MacCracken and many other top level global climate scientists about how the predictions that were made many years ago compare to the events we are seeing now. This is stunning video.
Many of you know that I won't give you this discouraging news without an avenue to a solution. We have seen that we can not wait for 'others' to solve this problem because basically it is a problem of our own consumption. We all have to reduce our carbon footprint. As climate scientist Dr. James Hansen states; the most effective action an individual can take is to eliminate/reduce meat consumption. We also need to reduce our fossil fuel transportation and home energy usage. And of course we have to continue to lobby our government for policies to lower greenhouse gas emissions and to mitigate climate change.