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Copenhagen Accord pledges are paltry

Nature volume 464, pages 1126–1128 (2010)Cite this article

Subjects

Current national emissions targets can't limit global warming to 2 °C, calculate Joeri Rogelj, Malte Meinshausen and colleagues — they might even lock the world into exceeding 3 °C warming.

Summary

  • Nations will probably meet only the lower ends of their emissions pledges in the absence of a binding international agreement

  • Nations can bank an estimated 12 gigatonnes of Co 2 equivalents surplus allowances for use after 2012

  • Land-use rules are likely to result in further allowance increases of 0.5 GtCO 2 -eq per year

  • Global emissions in 2020 could thus be up to 20% higher than today

  • Current pledges mean a greater than 50% chance that warming will exceed 3°C by 2100

  • If nations agree to halve emissions by 2050, there is still a 50% chance that warming will exceed 2°C and will almost certainly exceed 1.5°C

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Author information

Affiliations

  1. Joeri Rogelj, Julia Nabel, Claudine Chen, William Hare, Kathleen Markmann and Malte Meinshausen are with the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, 14473 Potsdam, Germany. malte.meinshausen@pik-potsdam.de

    Joeri Rogelj, Julia Nabel, Claudine Chen, William Hare, Kathleen Markmann & Malte Meinshausen

  2. Michiel Schaeffer and Kirsten Macey are with Climate Analytics, 14467 Potsdam, Germany.

    Michiel Schaeffer & Kirsten Macey

  3. Niklas Höhne is at Ecofys, 50829 Cologne, Germany.

    Niklas Höhne

Authors
  1. Joeri Rogelj
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  2. Julia Nabel
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  3. Claudine Chen
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  4. William Hare
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  5. Kathleen Markmann
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  6. Malte Meinshausen
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  7. Michiel Schaeffer
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  8. Kirsten Macey
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  9. Niklas Höhne
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Additional information

Further reading

Copenhagen Accord Submissions Press Release4 February 2010; available here

European Commission. International climate policy post-Copenhagen: Acting now to reinvigorate global action on climate change pp. 13 (European Commission, 2010).

Gupta, S. et al. in Climate Change 2007: Mitigation. Contribution of Working Group III to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Metz, B. et al. eds), pp. 860 (Cambridge University Press, 2007).

den Elzen, M. & Höhne, N. Climatic Change 91, 249 (2008).

den Elzen, M., van Vuuren, D. &. van Vliet, J. Climatic Change 99, 313 (2010).

Brohan, P., Kennedy, J. J., Harris, I., Tett, S. F. B. & Jones, P. D. J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos. 111, D12106 (2006).

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Rogelj, J., Nabel, J., Chen, C. et al. Copenhagen Accord pledges are paltry. Nature 464, 1126–1128 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/4641126a

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