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UN experts warned yesterday of a huge gap between goals set to fight global warming and what is being done to reach them.
Greenhouse gas emissions must drop by 40-70 per cent by 2050 to keep the global temperature rise below the 2°C cap set in climate talks, the UN intergovernmental panel on climate change said.
But the opposite is happening. Global emissions rose by 890 million tons a year between 2000 and 2010, outpacing growth in previous decades to reach “unprecedented levels” despite efforts to contain them, the committee said.
“There is a clear message from science: to avoid dangerous interference with the climate system, we need to move away from business as usual,” said panel co-chairman Ottmar Edenhofer.
But business as usual seemed to be the only answer US Secretary of State John Kerry had to offer.
“The global energy market represents a $6 trillion (£3.6trn) opportunity, with six billion users around the world,” he said.
“We already know climate science is unambiguous … but focusing only on grim realities misses promising realities staring us right in the face.”
However, the UN panel said keeping warming below 2°C by 2100 would require a significant shift in the energy system away from oil and coal.
That would mean a near-quadrupling of energy from zero or low-carbon sources such as solar and wind power.
Current pledges by governments to reduce emissions are on a path to 3°C of warming, the panel said.