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Will Lima climate talks pave way for a binding treaty in Paris in 2015?

When, on Monday morning in Peru, 4,000 diplomats from the world’s 196 countries start their mammoth session to negotiate a new legally-binding global climate deal, they will know they are in the last chance saloon. COP 20 in Lima is the last full meeting before Paris in a year’s time, when the deal is due to be signed. If countries cannot bury most of their differences on the major issues by Friday week, then the chances of a meaningful agreement next year are slim.

Usa-Cina, c’è l’accordo per ridurre il gas serra

La corsa per fermare il riscaldamento globale accelera. Stati Uniti e Cina hanno raggiunto un accordo per ridurre su base volontaria le emissioni di gas serra, finalizzato a diminuire i danni dell’inquinamento e favorire la firma di un nuovo trattato globale per rinnovare il Protocollo di Kyoto, al vertice in programma l’anno prossimo a Parigi. Così il presidente Obama, come anticipato lunedì da La Stampa incassa un successo internazionale che gli consente di far passare in secondo piano la sconfitta subita dal suo partito alle elezioni midterm del 4 novembre scorso.

IPCC report: six graphs that show how we’re changing the world’s climate

On Sunday the world’s top climate scientists are expected to reiterate their warning that humanity’s influence on the climate is unequivocal, with wide-ranging impacts across the planet, from rising seas to melting ice. The UN’s climate science panel, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), is currently meeting in Copenhagen to thrash out the final wording of its so-called ‘synthesis’ report, the most comprehensive account of the state on climate science in seven years.

Rising sea levels of 1.8 meters in worst-case scenario

The climate is getting warmer, the ice sheets are melting and sea levels are rising — but how much? The report of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2013 was based on the best available estimates of future sea levels, but the panel was not able to come up with an upper limit for sea level rise within this century. Now researchers from the Niels Bohr Institute and their colleagues have calculated the risk for a worst-case scenario. The results indicate that at worst, the sea level would rise a maximum of 1.8 meters. The results are published in the scientific journal Environmental Research Letters.

Scrap the Climate Change Act to keep the lights on, says Owen Paterson

Britain will struggle to “keep the lights on” unless the Government changes its green energy policies, the former environment secretary will warn this week. Owen Paterson will say that the Government’s plan to slash carbon emissions and rely more heavily on wind farms and other renewable energy sources is fatally flawed. He will argue that the 2008 Climate Change Act, which ties Britain into stringent targets to reduce the use of fossil fuels, should be suspended until other countries agree to take similar measures. If they refuse, the legislation should be scrapped altogether, he will say.

Climate Realities

ON Tuesday, world leaders will converge at United Nations headquarters in New York for a summit meeting on the climate that will set the stage for global negotiations next year to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the threat of global climate change. The summit is titled “Catalyzing Action,” a decidedly hopeful characterization. I wish I were so hopeful. It is true that, in theory, we can avoid the worst consequences of climate change with an intensive global effort over the next several decades. But given real-world economic and, in particular, political realities, that seems unlikely.