Strong climate action - UN
2009-10-15 17:08
Paris - The head of the UN's climate scientists on Thursday urged a key conference on global warming to set tough mid-term goals and warned carbon emissions had to peak by 2015 to meet a widely-shared vision.
Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the Nobel-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said the talks in Copenhagen in December must focus on 2020, a far more important target than mid-century.
"Strong, urgent and effective action" is needed, Pachauri told a meeting of ministers of the International Energy Agency (IEA) in Paris.
"It is not enough to set any aspirational goal for 2050, it is critically important that we bring about a commitment to reduce emissions effectively by 2020," he said.
Pachauri added that over the last two years he had witnessed "a massive explosion of awareness and therefore willingness to take action" in climate change.
Serious impact
But, he said, the deal in Copenhagen had to be consistent with the concerns of scientists, who say that "greenhouse" gases that trap heat from the Sun are already affect the world's climate system and grave potential problems lie ahead.
The Group of Eight (G8) and other countries have endorsed the target of pegging warming to no more than 2°C above pre-industrial times.
Pachauri said that this target "is not without some fairly serious impact".
"If this path of mitigation is to be embarked on, to ensure stabilisation of temperatures at the level that I mentioned 2°C, then global emissions must peak by 2015," he said.
The Copenhagen talks from December 7 to 18 are taking place under the 192-nation UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
The objective is a treaty that will tackle carbon emissions and their impacts and encouraging a switch to cleaner energy after 2012, when the current provisions of the Kyoto Protocol expire.
- SAPA