By the second half of this century, there must be a balance between the emissions from human activity like energy production and farming, and the amount that can be captured by natural or technological “sinks” like carbon-absorbing forests or carbon storage plants. “To stabilize our climate, Carbon dioxide emissions have to peak well before 2030 and should be eliminated as soon as possible after 2050”.
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Berlin, Dec.13: Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber stated on the outcome of COP21 World Climate Summit that a historical climate agreement that finally transcends national egotisms has been agreed upon.
Nations have set an aim of keeping temperatures below 1.5C.
“If all the industrial nations went down to zero [carbon dioxide] emissions, it wouldn’t be enough”.
The last big climate protests in Paris, on the eve of the talks November 29, ended in tear gas and more than 100 arrests as some activists defied a ban on demonstrations.
In 2018, two years before the agreement enters into force, countries will take stock of the overall impact of what they are doing to rein in global warming, and revisit their carbon-curbing plans in 2020.
Some delegates in Le Bourget, the suburb near Paris, where the conference is being hosted, say a 27-page draft presented late on Thursday by French foreign minister Laurent Fabius has allowed rich nations to shift the responsibility of fighting global warming to developing nations. That figure is a “floor” and must be periodically reviewed. Low-mendacity island nations and poor nations most in danger from climate change-induced sea degree rise and different impacts, have gained recognition of the want for “averting, minimising and addressing” losses suffered.
Most countries in Paris accept that they face a wicked problem in trying to stop rising global temperatures.
So far, more than 180 nations have put forward plans to cut emissions but they put the world on a path to warming anywhere from 2.7C to 3.7C, according to scientific studies.
“We are going backwards”, said Gurdial Singh Nijar of Malaysia, the head of a bloc of hardline countries that also includes India, China and Saudi Arabia.
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Meeting a 1.5C limit would require higher energy prices to spur investment in cleaner energy sources, bioenergy and carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology, which captures carbon dioxide and stores it underground.
