Climate experts say governments have to announce ambitious targets to curb emissions

Dec 12, 2011 07:43 GMT  ·  By
Governments have to scale up efforts to lower the amount of greenhouse gas emissions by 2020
   Governments have to scale up efforts to lower the amount of greenhouse gas emissions by 2020

Despite that diplomats seem pleased with the deal sealed last week, during the Durban summit, eco-groups and scientists warn that an international agreement is not enough to save us from the harmful effects of climate change.

Nevertheless, there are still no actual pledges powerful enough to fight global warming, according to climate experts. Bob Ward, from Grantham Institute at the London School of Economics, has revealed that current pledges introduced throughout the summit are far from preserving global temperatures to 2⁰C above pre-industrial levels, the Guardian reports.

[Admark=1]It appears that the announced projects could imply global emissions would reach 50bn tonnes in 2020. This amount is quite similar to the level of air pollution declared this year.

Moreover, Ward thinks that a 50% change of fighting climate change and its irreparable damage could be experienced only if global emissions decrease to 44bn tonnes within the next decade, and reach 35bn tons in 2030 and only 20bn in 2050.

“What remains to be done is to take more ambitious actions to reduce emissions, and until this is done, we are still headed to over 3C warming. There are still no new pledges on the table and the process agreed in Durban towards raising the ambition and increasing emission reductions is uncertain in its outcome.”

Although the last-minute deal was welcomed with enthusiasm by diplomats, stating it counts as a major first step towards an effective international agreement both for poor and rich nations, representatives failed to highlight whether their climate talk can actually protect us from dangerous levels of warming.

“[Current]pledges for emissions reductions are not consistent with the two degrees target, although they would, if delivered, move us halfway between 'business as usual' and the path on which we would need to be in 2020,” declared Ward.

The positive effects of this year' summit is that is has reopened a new door, revealing the necessity to come up with an international agreement to curb greenhouse gas emissions. It also managed to restore the public opinion's confidence after the Copenhagen conference fiasco in 2009.

On the other hand, Andy Atkins, executive director of Friends of the Earth said the current levels of GHG emitted by both financially-challenged and wealthy nations is “inadequate” and have to be lowered as soon as possible, or the fate of the poor countries would be seriously threatened.