Reluctance to raise ambitions to cut greenhouse gas emissions due to economic constraints is threatening progress towards limiting global warming, delegates at United Nations’ climate talks in Germany warned on Monday.
The talks in Bonn, which end on May 25, are partly to discuss ways of raising the level of ambition on cuts but the worsening eurozone crisis and battered global economy have increased reluctance to commit to more financially onerous cuts by the end of the decade, delegates told Reuters.
Last year’s U.N. climate talks in Durban, South Africa, agreed to develop a new protocol, legal instrument or legally binding deal by 2015 which would apply to all parties under the U.N.’s climate convention and would come into force no later than 2020.
Countries had already agreed in 2010 that deep greenhouse gas emissions cuts had to be made to keep a rise in global average temperature below two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels this century to avoid more extreme weather, glacier melts, ocean acidification and other harmful impacts.
But efforts so far to cut emissions are not seen as sufficient to stop a rise beyond two degrees this century.
“The ambition gap must be closed..in Doha,” said Sai Navoti, lead negotiator for the Alliance of Small Island States, referring to talks scheduled for November-December in Qatar.
“Failing to close the gap immediately will lead to significant risks across various tipping points and global average temperature exceeding 3.5 degrees,” he added.
Last November, the U.N. Environment Programme issued a report showing that the gap between current emissions cut pledges and what is needed to limit global warming is wider than ever, growing from 5-9 gigatonnes of CO2-equivalent in 2010 to 6-11 gigatonnes in 2011.
