By Shawn Dell Joyce

It’s hard to think of global warming when our region is blanketed in new-fallen snow and looks like a winter wonderland. But right now, delegates from around the world are converging on Copenhagen to hash out a global climate treaty that will affect all of us, and our future generations.

Climate change activists are not hopeful, as there is still much disagreement between industrialized and developing nations that centers around four main points according to Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC):The authors of the IPCC reports sponsored by the UN, released a special report called The Copenhagen Diagnosis to draw delegate’s attention to seven main points:

1. How much are the industrialized countries willing to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases?
 
2. How much are major developing countries such as China and India willing to do to limit the growth of their emissions?
 
3. How is the help needed by developing countries to engage in reducing their emissions and adapting to the impacts of climate change going to be financed?
 
4. How is that money going to be managed?

“If Copenhagen can deliver on those four points I’d be happy,” said Yvo de Boer in recent interviews.

The last global treaty; the Kyoto Protocol was ratified in 1997 and will expire in 2012. It set binding targets for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions for 184 countries. The most notable exception is the United States, and Yvo de Boer told the press he is “really happy” to see the U.S. back in negotiations.

 

1. Greenhouse gas emissions are surging: Global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels in 2008 were 40% higher than those in 1990. Stabilizing global emissions at these levels is too low, and may lead to global warming of 2 ^{degrees or more, crossing the catastrophic threshold.Temperatures have increased at a rate of 0.19 (C) per decade for two and a half decades. There have been natural, short-term fluctuations, but no change in the underlying warming trend.Satellite and ice measurements now show beyond doubt that both the Greenland and Antarctic ice-caps are losing mass at an increasing rate. Melting of glaciers and ice-sheets has also accelerated since 1990. Summer-time melting of Arctic sea-ice has accelerated far beyond the climate models. This area of sea-ice melt during 2007-2009 was about 40% greater than the average prediction from previous IPCC models. Satellites show global average sea-level rise (3.4 mm/yr over the past 15 years) to be 80% above past IPCC predictions, due to the more rapid melting of glaciers, ice caps and ice-sheets.  Sea-levels are expected to continue to rise for at least a century after global temperature have been stabilized, and could rise several meters over the next few centuries. The most vulnerable elements of our biosphere such as continental ice-sheets and rainforest could be pushed towards abrupt or irreversible change if warming continues at its current rate. The risk of passing a tipping point increases the longer that we wait. It’s time to evoke the Precautionary Principle, meaning that we cannot delay action hoping for scientific certainty or we may run out of options.: If global warming is to be limited to a maximum of 2 degrees above pre-industrial values—considered the catastrophic threshold, global emissions need to peak between 2015 and 2020 and then decline rapidly.}

 

 

2. Recent global temperatures show human-based warming:

3. Melting of glaciers and global ice is accelerating:

4. Rapid loss of Arctic sea-ice:

5. Sea-levels are rising faster than predicted:

6.  By delaying action, we risk irreversible damage:

7. Peak carbon must be now

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