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Showing posts with label Professor of Climate Science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Professor of Climate Science. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 9, 2015

Prof Larkin faults first draft of Paris Climate Change agreement



NaijaAgroNet:
Professor of Climate Science & Energy Policy at The University of Manchester, Ms Alice Bows Larkin, has faulted the first draft statement at the on-going COP21 in Paris, reports NaijaAgroNet.

Prof. Larkin was responding to the first draft statement released Wednesday afternoon, saying that it does not specific how to reduce global emissions below 2°C.

She pointed out that the latest text from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is an international environmental treaty negotiated at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro which includes a statement that the increase in global average temperatures will be held at least below 2°C above pre-industrial levels.

“It says it will try to achieve this by either peaking global emissions as soon as possible or through a long-term global low emissions transformation over this century,” she quoted part of the draft statement.

According to Prof. Larkin, both options refer to the ‘best available science’ which she described as disappointing then that despite clarity from the science, in terms of a need for urgent and deep mitigation, and a limited carbon budget that has been quantified, there is no reference to this budget, stressing it appears that this agreement will not set legally binding CO2 limits.

“So, whilst it is encouraging to see the temperature goal, and even the potential for a more strict (1.5C) temperature goal remains in the text, I would question how mitigation to the extent necessary will be achieved, given the focus is on individual national pledges as opposed to a legally binding carbon budget, that fits with the scientific interpretation of the 2°C goal,” she said.
 
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