Climate warning to world leaders: stick to 2C limit or face 'mayhem' Experts deliver stark message for Obama and Cameron ahead of UN summit in New York / GUARDIAN. Cidades em todo o mundo e em Portugal juntam-se à marcha global pelo clima.

Climate warning to world leaders: stick to 2C limit or face 'mayhem'

Experts deliver stark message for Obama and Cameron ahead of UN summit in New York

Robin McKie

The Observer, Sunday 21 September 2014 / http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/sep/21/un-limit-climate-rise-warning-nicholas-stern-barack-obama-david-cameron

World leaders must commit themselves to holding current rises in global temperatures to 2C. That is the stark message of experts and campaigners in the runup to the United Nations climate summit that will be held in New York later this week.

They say that 2C is the maximum temperature increase that the world can tolerate without causing environmental mayhem, and they insist that politicians attending the meeting, including Barack Obama and David Cameron, must agree to that upper limit.

"If Obama and the others decide that 2C has to be the limit, then negotiators will subsequently find it so much easier to hammer out a framework for curtailing carbon dioxide emissions over the next year," said Nicholas Stern, the British economist and climate expert who will be attending the meeting.

"If they have a specific goal – a 2C limit – then that will make it so much easier to design carbon emission limits for different countries," he told the Observer.

The importance of setting an upper temperature limit is also backed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, writing in the Observer. "Our environment is already saturated with carbon," states the Nobel peace prizewinner and activist. "If we don't limit global warming to two degrees or less, we are doomed to a period of unprecedented instability, insecurity and loss of species."

The meeting in New York is not part of the United Nations' official climate negotiating process. Instead it has been called by UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon to kickstart the full-scale carbon emission negotiations that are scheduled to be held in 2015. These are intended to culminate in official talks in Paris next year when it is hoped that a framework will be hammered out for limiting carbon emissions over the following three decades.

"More than 120 world leaders are going to attend the conference in New York, and that will be extraordinarily important in setting the agenda for the Paris talks," added Stern. "If those leaders agree to that temperature limit, the decision will open up all sorts of negotiating avenues."

Scientists say that humans have now poured around 1,950bn tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere – by burning fossil fuels – over the last 200 years. If that total reaches 3,670bn tonnes, they add, it will be hard to avoid a 2C rise in global temperatures and that would trigger a host of devastating changes to the climate. These would include major rises in sea levels, the melting of ice-caps, droughts in Africa, America and Asia, storms and ocean acidification.

The trouble is that, at present rates of fossil fuel consumption, that 3,670bn-tonne limit will be reached in less than three decades. The aim of the New York meeting – which will be marked by a people's climate march in several cities, including London on Sunday – is to give new impetus to climate change negotiations which have stalled over the past two or three years. "The United Nations has run up against governments and leaders of industry who have until now put short-term economic and political goals ahead of our collective long-term survival," writes Tutu. "We can no longer tinker about the edges."

Observers at the meeting will look for a strong lead from Obama. According to Stern, it is critically important that the US president announce his commitment to limit global temperatures to a rise of no more than 2C. It is also hoped that the Chinese leadership will play a more active role in talks, he added.

The New York meeting takes place amid increasing worries about climate change and in particular about surging carbon dioxide levels, the major cause of global warming. These levels rose at their fastest rate for 30 years in 2013, according to figures released this month by the World Meteorological Organisation.

The carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere now stands at 142% of what it did before the industrial revolution, with concentrations reaching 396 parts per million last year, an increase on the previous year of 2.9ppm. At this rate, annual concentrations are likely to pass the symbolic 400ppm level by 2015, say scientists.

"Our weather is becoming more extreme due to human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels," said World Meteorological Organisation secretary-general Michel Jarraud. "We must reverse this trend by cutting emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases across the board. We are running out of time."

It was also revealed last week that this summer was the hottest since global temperature records began in 1880. According to a report that was published last week by the US National Climatic Data Centre, the world's land and ocean surfaces averaged 16.35C in August 2014, a temperature that was 0.7C above the average for the 20th century.

 CIDADANIA

Cidades em todo o mundo e em Portugal juntam-se à marcha global pelo clima

20/9/2014, OBSERVADOR / LUSA

Mais de duas mil cidades de todo o mundo, quase 30 em Portugal, juntam-se, no domingo, à Marcha Global pelo Clima, iniciativa que partiu dos EUA, para alertar contra a falta de mudanças para enfrentar as alterações climáticas.

Mais de duas mil cidades de todo o mundo, quase 30 em Portugal, juntam-se, no domingo, à Marcha Global pelo Clima, iniciativa que partiu dos EUA, para alertar contra a falta de mudanças para enfrentar as alterações climáticas.

Durante o fim-de-semana, a região de Lisboa apresenta nove ações, entre marchas, no Rossio (domingo), “Lisboa Ciclável” no Terreiro do Paço (hoje), já com centenas de participantes inscritos, e que integra a Semana Europeia da Mobilidade, ou o Movimento Certo 2014, no Areeiro, segundo a informação disponível no site da organização internacional.

No Porto estão previstas duas iniciativas, e Braga, Coimbra, Leiria, Lagos, Tavira ou Faro são outras cidades que constam do roteiro da Peoples Climate para uma “marcha” em todo o mundo a chamar a atenção dos responsáveis políticos, mas também de cada um dos cidadãos, para a necessidade de avançar medidas e mudar comportamentos em defesa do planeta.

Trata-se de encontrar uma solução para a redução das emissões de gases com efeito de estufa, causadoras do aquecimento global e das alterações climáticas, e começar a combater também o elevado consumo de recursos naturais, como as florestas.

Entre as cidades que vão ter as suas marchas estão Londres, Berlim, Nova Deli, Melbourne, S.Paulo, Dublin, Seul, Joanesburgo ou Istambul.

De 150 países, vão chegar a Nova Iorque as preocupações e os pedidos dirigidos à Organização das Nações Unidas (ONU) que realiza uma cimeira de chefes de Estado e de governo, na terça-feira.

Esta reunião, em que vai participar o ministro do Ambiente, Ordenamento do Território e Energia, Jorge Moreira da Silva, pode ser um importante passo para chegar ao Acordo de Paris, para travar as alterações climáticas, a assinar em dezembro de 2015.

Em Nova Iorque, na marcha popular pelo clima, a portuguesa Quercus será uma das quase mil associações que responderam à chamada para uma “forte mobilização”, entre organizações que vão além dos ambientalistas e integram entidades religiosas, sindicatos ou representantes de setores económicos.

Em 2009, em Copenhaga, quando os países quase assinaram um novo acordo pelo clima, outra marcha juntou cerca de 100 mil pessoas e desde ai não voltou a acontecer uma mobilização tão forte como aquela agora preparada para Nova Iorque.

A meta da cimeira especial da ONU é assinar um novo tratado, em Paris, e até lá, realiza-se esta cimeira e a conferência em Lima, no Perú, em dezembro deste ano.

O protocolo de Quioto está “enfraquecido”, só com o compromisso de redução de emissões de gases com efeito de estufa, para 2020, dos países desenvolvidos europeus, ficando de fora outros como EUA, Canadá, Japão e Rússia.

“Temos de continuar a tentar”, salientou Francisco Ferreira, da Quercus, pois reduzir o consumo e pegada ecológica, destruir menos os recursos, usar menos os combustíveis fósseis e apostar mais na eficiência energética e nas energias renováveis “são fundamentais para garantir a sobrevivência do planeta”.