No increase over 2 degrees after 2015 — Pachauri
1 commentCOPENHAGEN–More than two degrees average global temperature increase after 2015 would melt snow and ice across the globe and raise seas 0.4 to 1.4 meters, which could submerge several small island states and Bangladesh, warned a top climate scientist at UN talks here.
Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Dr Rajendra Pachauri said that “global emissions must not be allowed to peak after 2015 — that is barely six years from now — to limit the increase in global average temperature to maximum 2 degrees.”
He said the IPCC is now assessing the latest findings of climate change science and most of the observed increase in global average temperatures are likely due to an increase in greenhouse gas concentrations.
Observations and paleoclimatological information show that unprecedented changes in the climate system will continue both in amplitude and rate for hundreds to many thousands of years, he said.
Dr Pachauri said emitted CO2 can remain in the atmosphere for thousands of years causing irreversible changes in the climate and in ocean chemistry, endangering small island states and low lying coastal nations like Bangladesh.
Co-chair of an IPCC working group, Tomas Stocker, said the geoengineering methods, like pumping CO2 underground with so-called carbon capture and storage schemes, do not mitigate the direct effects of CO2 increase as they have some inherent problems.
He said thousands of scientists from all over the world are now contributing on a voluntary basis to prepare the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) of the IPCC which will be finalized in 2014.
He said the AR5 will have four new features, including dedicated chapters on sea level change, carbon cycle and climate phenomenon such as monsoons and El Nino.
IPCC’s first assessment report in 1990 played a decisive role in leading to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The second assessment report in 1995 provided key input for the negotiations of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997.
The Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) in 2007 paid greater attention to the integration of climate change with sustainable development policies and relationship between reduction of greenhouse emission and adaptation to climate change.
You should at least ensure you get your facts right. Dr Pachauri is not in any way shape or form a scientist. He is an “engineer turned economist” and a business entrepreneur.
If “emitted CO2″ is in the atmosphere for thousands of years, who emitted it thousands of years ago? His claim is false and has no basis in science.