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	450 Parts Per Million is still Self-Destructive by Bob Burton Center for Media and Democracy USA   Dec. 2009   Whatever the outcome of the final hours of wrangling at the COP15 conference in Copenhagen, the odds are that the leaders of some of the world"s richest countries will earnestly declare that they are working hard to stabilize atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations at 450 parts per million (ppm) and ensure that global average temperatures don"t exceed 2 degrees centigrade. Barring spectacular last-minute breakthroughs, such claims would be outlandish greenwash.   There are two problems with such claims. Firstly, is the suggestion that the current emission reduction commitments of major emitters is enough to stabilize emissions at 450 parts per million. (By way of background, the pre-industrial carbon dioxide concentrations were approximately 280ppm and current concentrations, as of November 2009, are just under 386 ppm.)   An analysis by the secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which was prepared on Tuesday night and subsequently leaked to the Guardian, warns that unless developed countries substantially increase their proposed emission cuts the world is on track to exceed 550 ppm and average temperature increases of 3 degrees.   Other analysis have estimated higher end points. Climate Action Tracker estimates that the current national commitments on the table would end up stabilizing carbon dioxide concentrations at approximately 650ppm. Another estimate, by the Sustainability Institute, estimates that it would put the global climate on track for 780ppm.   Even if the UNFCCC"s figure is the most accurate, it is a huge increase over pre-industrial levels and a lot, lot more than current concentrations.   Secondly, a bland statement that the goal is to keep the global average increase to 2 degrees masks the fact that averages can be very deceptive. Desmond Tutu, referring to an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) analysis he had been shown, told a side event at COP15 that "to keep temperature increase in Africa to below 1.5 degrees C requires a global goal of less than 1 degree C; keeping it below 2 degrees in Africa would require a global goal of less than 1.3 degrees C. that is the crux of the matter. A global goal of about 2 degrees C is to condemn Africa to incineration and no modern development. And then of course there is the matter of funding mitigation and adaptation."   For this reason, the Africa Group has been an outspoken critic of the failure of the industrialized countries to put forward ambitious greenhouse gas emission reduction targets. The Alliance of Small Island States, a coalition of low-lying countries vulnerable to even small increases in sea-level, have also been insistent on adopting the target of 350 ppm in order to keep global average temperature increases below 1.5 degrees increase. Without the industrialized countries putting ambitious targets on the table, China, India and Brazil have balked at taking on substantial commitments themselves.   If nothing else comes out of COP15, the strength of the advocacy for a 350 ppm limit by an increasing number of very vulnerable countries and a broad global citizens movement has profoundly changed the dynamics of the global climate change negotiations. (The 350ppm goal followed the publication of Target Atmospheric CO2: Where Should Humanity Aim?, an influential paper by James Hansen, the director of NASA"s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and several colleagues).   If political leaders emerge from Copenhagen claiming that they are on track for achieving a 450 ppm stabilization target, it is worth remembering that the evidence just doesn"t support that. And even if they did, why would anyone proclaim that adding another 64ppm of carbon dioxide into the global atmosphere is something to be proud of, given what we already know about the impacts of current concentration levels?
	Fourteen days to seal history"s judgment on this generation. by The Guardian and 56 newspapers in 45 countries   Dec. 2009   This week 56 newspapers in 45 countries take the unprecedented step of speaking with one voice through a common editorial. We do so because humanity faces a profound emergency.   Unless we combine to take decisive action, climate change will ravage our planet, and with it our prosperity and security. The dangers have been becoming apparent for a generation. Now the facts have started to speak: 11 of the past 14 years have been the warmest on record, the Arctic ice-cap is melting and last year"s inflamed oil and food prices provide a foretaste of future havoc. In scientific journals the question is no longer whether humans are to blame, but how little time we have got left to limit the damage. Yet so far the world"s response has been feeble and half-hearted.   Climate change has been caused over centuries, has consequences that will endure for all time and our prospects of taming it will be determined in the next 14 days. We call on the representatives of the 192 countries gathered in Copenhagen not to hesitate, not to fall into dispute, not to blame each other but to seize opportunity from the greatest modern failure of politics. This should not be a fight between the rich world and the poor world, or between east and west. Climate change affects everyone, and must be solved by everyone.   The science is complex but the facts are clear. The world needs to take steps to limit temperature rises to 2C, an aim that will require global emissions to peak and begin falling within the next 5-10 years. A bigger rise of 3-4C — the smallest increase we can prudently expect to follow inaction — would parch continents, turning farmland into desert. Half of all species could become extinct, untold millions of people would be displaced, whole nations drowned by the sea. The controversy over emails by British researchers that suggest they tried to suppress inconvenient data has muddied the waters but failed to dent the mass of evidence on which these predictions are based.   Few believe that Copenhagen can any longer produce a fully polished treaty; real progress towards one could only begin with the arrival of President Obama in the White House and the reversal of years of US obstructionism. Even now the world finds itself at the mercy of American domestic politics, for the president cannot fully commit to the action required until the US Congress has done so.   But the politicians in Copenhagen can and must agree the essential elements of a fair and effective deal and, crucially, a firm timetable for turning it into a treaty. Next June"s UN climate meeting in Bonn should be their deadline. As one negotiator put it: "We can go into extra time but we can"t afford a replay."   At the deal"s heart must be a settlement between the rich world and the developing world covering how the burden of fighting climate change will be divided — and how we will share a newly precious resource: the trillion or so tonnes of carbon that we can emit before the mercury rises to dangerous levels.   Rich nations like to point to the arithmetic truth that there can be no solution until developing giants such as China take more radical steps than they have so far. But the rich world is responsible for most of the accumulated carbon in the atmosphere – three-quarters of all carbon dioxide emitted since 1850. It must now take a lead, and every developed country must commit to deep cuts which will reduce their emissions within a decade to very substantially less than their 1990 level.   Developing countries can point out they did not cause the bulk of the problem, and also that the poorest regions of the world will be hardest hit. But they will increasingly contribute to warming, and must thus pledge meaningful and quantifiable action of their own. Though both fell short of what some had hoped for, the recent commitments to emissions targets by the world"s biggest polluters, the United States and China, were important steps in the right direction.   Social justice demands that the industrialised world digs deep into its pockets and pledges cash to help poorer countries adapt to climate change, and clean technologies to enable them to grow economically without growing their emissions. The architecture of a future treaty must also be pinned down – with rigorous multilateral monitoring, fair rewards for protecting forests, and the credible assessment of "exported emissions" so that the burden can eventually be more equitably shared between those who produce polluting products and those who consume them. And fairness requires that the burden placed on individual developed countries should take into account their ability to bear it; for instance newer EU members, often much poorer than "old Europe", must not suffer more than their richer partners.   The transformation will be costly, but many times less than the bill for bailing out global finance — and far less costly than the consequences of doing nothing.   Many of us, particularly in the developed world, will have to change our lifestyles. The era of flights that cost less than the taxi ride to the airport is drawing to a close. We will have to shop, eat and travel more intelligently. We will have to pay more for our energy, and use less of it.   But the shift to a low-carbon society holds out the prospect of more opportunity than sacrifice. Already some countries have recognized that embracing the transformation can bring growth, jobs and better quality lives. The flow of capital tells its own story: last year for the first time more was invested in renewable forms of energy than producing electricity from fossil fuels.   Kicking our carbon habit within a few short decades will require a feat of engineering and innovation to match anything in our history. But whereas putting a man on the moon or splitting the atom were born of conflict and competition, the coming carbon race must be driven by a collaborative effort to achieve collective salvation.   Overcoming climate change will take a triumph of optimism over pessimism, of vision over short-sightedness, of what Abraham Lincoln called "the better angels of our nature".   It is in that spirit that 56 newspapers from around the world have united behind this editorial. If we, with such different national and political perspectives, can agree on what must be done then surely our leaders can too.   The politicians in Copenhagen have the power to shape history"s judgment on this generation: one that saw a challenge and rose to it, or one so stupid that we saw calamity coming but did nothing to avert it. We implore them to make the right choice.   This editorial was published by 56 newspapers around the world in 20 languages including Chinese, Arabic and Russian. The text was drafted by a Guardian team during more than a month of consultations with editors from more than 20 of the papers involved. Visit the related web page
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