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Fact Sheet

 

 

 

  • More than 7 billion people are living on planet Earth.

  • Greenhouse gases generated by human activity are the primary force driving global warming. 

  • Stabilising atmospheric CO2 and climate requires that net CO2 emissions approach zero.

  •  Atmospheric CO2 was stable at about 280 ppm for almost 10,000 years until 1750.

  • Circa 1912, atmospheric CO2 levels breached the 300 ppm threshold for the first time in at least 2.1 million years.

  • 37.8 billion metric tonnes of fossil fuel derived C02 in atmosphere in 2014.

  • Atmospheric CO2  June 2013 was recorded at 400 ppm.

  • If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, Paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 398 ppm to at most 320 ppm.

  • If the present overshoot of this target CO2 is not brief, there is a possibility of seeding irreversible catastrophic effects.

 

Atmospheric CO2 Projection for Year 2100.... 885 ppm.

This projection is made in, a scientifically reviewed climate simulator.

The analysis accounts for the voluntary emissions reductions pledges of parties to the UNFCCC. This CO2 level represents a global temperature increase of about 4.5 °C.

 

 

Year = CO2 (ppm)

2014 = 395.93 Lima Summit      

2013 = 394.48 Warsaw Summit

2012 = 393.55 Rio Summit

2011 = 391.57 Durban summit

2010 = 389.78 Cancun Summit

2009 = 387.38 Copenhagen Accord

2008 = 385.59 UK passes the Climate Change Act

2007 = 383.77 Bali Climate Change Conference

2006 = 381.90 Kyoto Protocol becomes international law

1992 = 356.38 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro

1987 = 349.16 Last year when the annual CO2 level was less than 350 ppm

1959 = 315.97 First year with a full year of instrument data 

 

 

Study and analysis of numerous papers on the projections of global warming offer a stark and unremitting assessment of the climate change challenge facing the global community. There is now no chance of maintaining the rise in global mean surface temperature at below 2â—¦C. Moreover, the impacts associated with 2â—¦C have been revised upwards so that 2â—¦C now more appropriately represents the threshold between dangerous and extremely dangerous climate change. Consequently, with global emissions returning to their earlier levels of growth, 2014 represents the tipping point.

This conclusion becomes even more challenging when assumptions about the rates of viable emission reductions are considered alongside an upgrading of the severity of impacts for 2â—¦C within global emission scenarios.

The CCC acknowledge ‘it is not now possible to ensure that a temperature rise of more than 2◦C is avoided’ and given the view that reductions in emissions in excess of 3–4% per year are not compatible with economic growth, the CCC are, in effect, conceding that avoiding dangerous (and even extremely dangerous) climate change is no longer compatible with economic prosperity.

This is a bare assessment of where our ‘rose-tinted’ (though ultimately ineffective) approach to climate change has brought us.

 

1 1995: COP 1 Berlin Mandate

2 1996: COP 2 Geneva, Switzerland

3 1997: COP 3 Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change

4 1998: COP 4 Buenos Aires, Argentina

5 1999: COP 5 Bonn, Germany

6 2000: COP 6 The Hague, Netherlands

7 2001: COP 6 Bonn, Germany

8 2001: COP 7 Marrakech, Morocco

9 2002: COP 8 New Delhi, India

10 2003: COP 9, Milan, Italy

11 2004: COP 10, Buenos Aires, Argentina

12 2005: COP 11/CMP 1, Montreal, Canada

13 2006: COP 12/CMP 2, Nairobi, Kenya

14 2007: COP 13/CMP 3, Bali, Indonesia

15 2008: COP 14/CMP 4, PoznaÅ„, Poland

16 2009: COP 15/CMP 5, Copenhagen, Denmark

17 2010: COP 16/CMP 6, Cancún, Mexico

18 2011: COP 17/CMP 7, Durban, South Africa

19 2012: COP 18/CMP 8, Doha, Qatar

20 2013: COP 19/CMP 9, Warsaw, Poland

21 2014: COP 20/CMP 10, Lima, Peru

22 2015: COP 21/CMP 11, Paris, France

 

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