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December 26 2009
COPENHAGEN’S REAL FAILURES: Thomas J. Goreau, PhD Hundreds of analyses of the Copenhagen United Nations Climate Change Conference have been posted in the week since the Conference ended in confusion and recrimination, but all of them miss the major points: 1) ALL of the CO2 and temperature targets proposed by every major negotiating group would lead to extinction of coral reefs, the ocean’s most economically productive and biodiverse marine ecosystem, flood all low lying islands, and cause billions of people living near low lying coast lines all around the world to flee their homes or die. Only ONE country, the Federated States of Micronesia, had the courage to call for targets that could prevent this. 2) Solutions were not even on the table: NO party to the conference focused on efforts to reverse global climate change using known, proven, and cost effective new technologies that could result in planetary sustainable development for all the world’s people. National “leaders” were so focused on preventing disruption of profits from current polluting energy policies and blaming each other that no one was paying attention to what we can actually DO to solve the problems. At the very end of the Conference the world’s largest polluters ignored years of transparent, inclusive and democratic negotiations between all the world’s countries, presenting a secretly hatched proposal to avoid all meaningful climate change targets and eliminate any legal commitments to action to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. They bullied poor countries into following them against their own best interests in the hope of inadequate aid and investment. But even the targets proposed by the Small Island Developing States, backed by all the developing countries (including China and India until their last minute alliance with the largest polluters), would have guaranteed the same result as no agreement at all, just a slightly slower death. Without scientifically sound targets and a solution-based strategy, we are on the road to disaster. There is very little time left to get it right. The latest projections by the United Kingdom Met Office, the world’s top climate modelers, released in Copenhagen, predict that 2010 is likely to be a record hot year. The rest of the decade is projected to be even hotter, eclipsing the record temperatures of 2000-2009, the hottest decade on record. Analysis of long term climate data shows that IPCC projections have badly underestimated long term increases in global temperature and sea level that we, and future generations, will have to deal with, and that a much lower CO2 target, 260 ppm, is needed to avert extinction of coral reefs, flooding of all low lying islands, and billions of climate refugees: http://www.globalcoral.org/AOSIS%20Briefing%202009.pdf For the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change to be an effective global problem solving tool, it must be based on sound science: projections based on REAL long term global climate sensitivities of sea level and temperature to CO2, not model based calculations using politically motivated time horizons that miss more than 90% of the temperature and sea level response. It must MANDATE COMPLETE ACCOUNTING OF ALL GHG SOURCES AND SINKS. The original draft of the UNFCCC sent by the UN to Governments included complete accounting of all GHG sources and sinks, but was watered down by governments, turning reporting requirements into scientific nonsense. At present, slipshod and dishonest accounting is deeply embedded in the Convention, which includes only politically selected GHG sources and sinks, while missing major ones. This fundamental flaw needs to be urgently corrected, because only sound and complete accounting can provide the basis for appropriately designed strategies to stabilize GHGs at safe levels, or assess their results. Finally, IMMEDIATE ACTION, not more words, are needed to start using the innovative, proven, cost effective, but underutilized technologies that could reverse global warming and place the entire planet and all its people on a trajectory towards true sustainable development. The sooner this is done, the less it will cost and the greater the benefits:
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