Global Emissions Study Show Worrying Results

A Scientific study into global greenhouse gas emissions shows we are way off meeting 2050 targets of keep within a degree C rise in global average temperatures.

Scientists have calculated that the world has already produced about a third of the total amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) that could be emitted between 2000 and 2050 and still keep within a one degree C rise in global average temperatures.

It is estimated that the current rate at which CO2 is emitted globally, currently increasing by 3 per cent year on year, countries will have exceeded their total limit of 1,000 billion tons within 20 years, around 20 years earlier than planned under international obligations.

“If we continue burning fossil fuels as we do, we will have exhausted the carbon budget in merely 20 years, and global warming will go well beyond one degree C,” said Malte Meinshausen of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, who led the study, published in Nature.

“Substantial reductions in global emissions have to begin soon – before 2020. If we wait longer, the required phase-out of carbon emissions will involve tremendous economic costs and technological challenges. We should not forget that a one degree C global mean warming would take us far beyond the variations that Earth has experienced since we humans have been around.”

It is the first study where scientists have accurately calculated the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that can be released into the atmosphere between 2000 and 2050 and still have a reasonable chance of avoiding temperature rises higher than one degree C above pre-industrial levels, widely accepted as a “safe” threshold for climate change.

The scientists found the total amount of greenhouse gases that could be released over this time would be equivalent to 1,000 billion tons of CO2. This is equivalent to using up about 25 per cent of known reserves of oil, gas and coal, according to Bill Hare, a co-author of the study.