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Just Released: A Call For Cumulative CO2 Limit
Scientists call for limits on cumulative emissions
of carbon dioxide
The scientists behind recent papers on carbon dioxide emissions and climate change have issued an open letter [see full text below] calling on the negotiators in the Bonn Climate Change Talks to acknowledge the need to limit cumulative emissions of carbon dioxide.
In addition to setting targets for emissions in 2020 and 2050, we feel the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change [UNFCCC] process should acknowledge that avoiding dangerous climate change will require emissions of the longest-lived greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide eventually to cease altogether,¹ explains Dr Myles Allen of Oxford University¹s Department of Physics.
Three of the letter¹s signatories Dr Myles Allen, Dr David Frame, of Oxford University¹s Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, and Dr Malte Meinshausen of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impacts Research will present the case for limits on cumulative carbon dioxide emissions at the Bonn talks on Thursday 11 June alongside David Hone, Group Climate Change Advisor for Shell, and Benito Mueller, Oxford Institute for Energy Studies.
For further information contact Dr Myles Allen on +44 (0)7776 306691 or Dr David Frame on +44 (0)7545 419909 or Professor Andrew Weaver +1 250 4724006
Alternatively, contact the University of Oxford Press Office on +44 (0)1865 283877 or email press.office@admin.ox.ac.uk
Notes to editors:
- The WIND/MoE meeting, The case for a cap on cumulative
emissions of CO2 and other very-long-lived greenhouse gases¹, will be held
in Bonn on 11 June 19:30-21:00. See:
http://regserver.unfccc.int/seors/reports/events_list.html
<http://regserver.unfccc.int/seors/reports/events_list.html> - Bonn climate talks homepage:
http://unfccc.int/meetings/sb30/items/4842.php
<http://unfccc.int/meetings/sb30/items/4842.php>
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Open Letter to the Negotiators of the UNFCCC:
The need to limit cumulative carbon dioxide emissions to avoid dangerous
climate change
We welcome the efforts of governments around the world to reach agreement on
measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and wish to draw attention to
recent scientific research indicating that a key determinant of the risk of
dangerous climate change is cumulative emissions over all time of the
longest-lived greenhouse gases, in particular carbon dioxide. This has three
important implications:
- First, current emission trends are incompatible with the goal of limiting
cumulative emissions to a level that provides an acceptably low risk of
dangerous climate change. Estimates of tolerable risk and allowable
emissions vary, but in all cases costs rise sharply with the speed of
emission reductions, so any affordable strategy to avoid releasing too much
carbon dioxide in total will require global emissions to peak soon. - Second, in devising emission targets for 2020 and 2050, governments need to
be aware of their implications for cumulative emissions. A policy that
allows carbon dioxide emissions to rise over the coming decade in the hope
of reducing them rapidly after 2020 results in a substantially higher
contribution to the cumulative budget, and hence a greater contribution to
the risk of dangerous climate change, than a policy of steady reductions
reaching the same 2050 target. - Third, fossil carbon reserves substantially exceed the amount that can
safely be released into the atmosphere. Net global carbon dioxide emissions
will eventually have to decline towards zero leaving a substantial fraction
of available fossil carbon stored, in some form, out of the atmosphere
indefinitely.
We urge the participants in December’s Conference of the Parties to the
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to acknowledge the
need to limit cumulative carbon dioxide emissions as one element of their
vision for long-term cooperative action to avoid dangerous climate change.
- Myles Allen, Department of Physics, University of Oxford
- David Archer, Department of Geophysical Sciences, University of Chicago
- David Frame, Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, University of
Oxford - Damon Matthews, Department of Geography, Planning and Environment,
Concordia University - Malte Meinshausen, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impacts Research
- Stephen Schneider, Department of Biology, Stanford University
- Andrew Weaver, School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, Victoria University
- Kirsten Zickfeld, Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis
From Meinshausen’s Potsdam web page: “Since 2000, Freelance consultancy for government bodies and environmental NGOs on climate policy issues”
He is a political advocacy scientist who studied at Myles Allen’s Oxford Institute, where there is a rapidly expanding, publicly funded, warming network developing, with close links of personnel and data with the Tyndall Centre via Myles Allen and Potsdam via Tyndall and via Meinshausen and via government funding departments.
As recently as December 2008 he was telling his Oxford college website that: “I now work on the issue of climate policy at the UN Climate Change Conferences for Greenpeace International.”He has a history of political action with Greenpeace and WWF as shown here:
Sinks in the CDM
http://www.iisd.ca/climate/cop8/enbots/asc/enbots1105e.txt
Tuesday, 29 October 2002
Malte Meinshausen, Greenpeace, highlighted the Protocol’s requirement that all CDM projects result in “real, measurable and long-term benefits”.
He has also co-authored with Jennifer Morgan, ex-Climate Director of WWF: http://www.foejapan.org/climate/doc/tokyoconf/09b_MORGAN.pdf (2004)
He is now at Potsdam with Bill Hare, who until at least as late as August 2008, was still described on the Greenpeace web site as Greenpeace International Director of Climate Policy, a position he has held since 1992, whilst at the same time having been at Potsdam as a “visiting scientist” since 2002 and an AR4 lead author with IPCC.
He must have one of the biggest carbon footprints in the Universe, having attended just about every conference on the climate over the last 20 years, running into several hundreds.
How disgraceful that there is no disclosure of interest in any of the publications that these people have been appearing in, in order to impact on the politicians in Copenhagen. It is dishonest, but biologist Stephen Schneider, also a signatory above, has a history of dishonesty in climate matters, going back to the cooling scares of the 70′s.
Objective science? I think not.
@ harbinger
It might be worth pointing out to you that if a person has chosen a career in a particular subject matter it will usually be a subject in which that person has a particular interest. Thus this person will form both a personal and a professional opinion. Having a personal opinion, doesn’t prevent that person from a) presenting unbiased professional views and b) from being subjected to peer review by other scientists with professional opinions, who in the base of bias, should point this out.
Or do you propose that people are unable to differentiate between their professional and personal opinions? In which case, as you have not stated YOUR biases, what leads you believe that your comment should be received with any less scepticism than what you purport to be necessary of the opinions of others? Where is your peer review and transparency?
Or are you proposing that the whole scientific community is colluding, supporting each other with biased peer reviewed reinforcements? If this is the case, why shouldn’t you equally question the medical research community? Tell me, do you approach aspirin with the same scepticism?
Just a thought.
Yes, N, I have biases, and here’s what they are:
I believe, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, that there’s hope of saving our biosphere. And by biosphere, I mean not just the flora and fauna of our planet, but, in spite of much evidence to the contrary, human beings themselves.
And I believe that as well as cutting GHG emissions to zero in the next few years, which in spite of all you may have heard, must be done, we will also find a way to remove the many megatonnes of excess carbon that now burden our atmosphere and threaten our future.
In other words, I believe we can save ourselves and our world from mega-warming and uncontrollable global climatic disruption.
I do seek out experts who clearly understand the emergency situation into which we have allowed ourselves to drift. It is the courage and concern of members of the scientific community who understand the problem and speak out about it that gets me up in the morning and gives me hope.
And I do take a low-dose aspirin every day, for “prevention.” We could all use a lot more “prevention” in our lives and in our political and economic systems.