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Data Show Global Carbon Emissions Hit Record High in 2011
New climate data published in the journal Nature Climate Change on Sunday show that global
carbon emissions hit a record high in 2011 and could increase in 2012
without a concerted international effort to reduce emissions. According to the
analysis published by the study’s authors, the prospect for keeping global
warming below 2 ⁰C – the threshold above which scientists expect irreversible climate
change to take effect – is increasingly dim. “A
shift to a 2 °C pathway requires immediate significant and sustained global
mitigation, with a probable reliance on net negative emissions in the longer
term,” the authors concluded.
The climate data were released as international delegates
meet for four final days of negotiations at the UN Framework Convention on
Climate Change (UNFCC) Conference of Parties 18 in Doha, Qatar. According to a
report from The New York Times on
Monday, those negotiations are not expected to result in meaningful international
progress: “Their
agenda is modest this year, with no new emissions targets and little progress
expected on a protocol that is supposed to be concluded in 2015 and take effect
in 2020.”
The executive secretary of the UNFCC Christiana Figueres
said in an interview that countries need to do more at the domestic level in
order to build momentum toward a comprehensive global agreement. “We
won’t get an international agreement until enough domestic legislation and action
are in place to begin to have an effect,” Figueres said in an interview,
according to The New York Times. “Governments
have to find ways in which action on the ground can be accelerated and taken to
a higher level, because that is absolutely needed.”
www.cnas.org
2012-12-03 11:42:55
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