UK: August 18, 2006
LONDON - The European Union is doing too little to achieve its goal of limiting global warming although it portrays itself as a world leader, some academics say.
They want upcoming studies of the environment to add new urgency to international action to axe use of fossil fuels.
The EU says to avoid dangerous interference with the climate global average temperatures should not exceed 2 degrees Celsius (3.6F) above pre-industrial levels. To that end it wants developed countries to cut emissions up to 30 percent by 2020.
"Everyone talks about 2 degrees as if we were on target," said Kevin Anderson, climate scientist at Britain's Tyndall Centre in Norwich. "EU and UK rhetoric is relatively strong but the policy is completely inadequate, and they're the best there is."
Climate prediction is an inexact science and many politicians, led by US President George W. Bush, remain unconvinced by dire warnings of global warming. And scientists themselves dispute exactly how much action is required and when.
But many academics agree action to curb climate change is too slow, pointing to rising greenhouse gas emissions even as the European Union delivers tough rhetoric on cuts.
The EU's own emissions rose slightly in 2004. Emissions also rose in the United States, the world's biggest polluter, which has not imposed mandatory caps.
"If the priority of climate change stays where it is I am very pessimistic," said Malte Meinshausen from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, who has previously advised the European Commission.
"If mitigation isn't given a higher priority than we can't achieve 2 degrees."
Average temperatures have already risen by 0.6 degrees since the 1800s, and are expected to rise another 1.4 to 5.8 degrees by the year 2100, the United Nations climate change body says.
Scientists advise policymakers by saying where emissions are now, where they are headed, and where they should be to control long-term levels of greenhouse gases in the earth's atmosphere.
PUSH
Anderson reckons Britain's already ambitious goal of a 60 percent cut in domestic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 2050 is based on old science which could lead to a 3 degrees rise.
If shipping and rapidly-rising international aviation are included, he calculates Britain's CO2 emissions in 2006 will exceed those in 1990, a common baseline year for targets.
Britain is still committed to the 2 degrees target, a Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs spokesman said, but added: "The UK cannot solve climate change alone and the science of climate change is constantly developing."
Scientists and policymakers see two key studies weighing on the politics -- Britain's Stern Review on climate change costs, due out in the autumn, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) review of science.
The IPCC review, grouping over 2,000 scientists who advise the United Nations, is published in February and is expected to show stronger evidence for climate change and man's part in it.
"I think the conditions are just right for this report to make a perceptible impact," said IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri. "I think there's enough observed evidence now that certainly will influence the policymakers."
"I've just come back from one of the small mountain states of India, and they regard the melting of the glaciers as the most important problem they're facing. Their entire water supply gets completely distorted."
Talks this year on extending the UN's Kyoto Protocol on curbing emissions beyond 2012 could also focus action.
"There is a bit of shadow boxing going on, each group of countries is waiting for what the others are going to do," said Pachauri. "My feeling is that in the next year and a half things will accelerate and perhaps you will see some action."
Hinting at the trouble getting consensus, in its report to the G8 on how to drive emissions cuts the International Energy Agency (IEA) devoted just one page in a 486-page book to discussing climate change goals.
"The IEA is representing member countries with... different views on climate policy, including what concentration levels would be acceptable, and we didn't get into that at all," said Fridtjof Unander, lead author of the report, published in June.
"What we wanted to do was to demonstrate that by pushing on development and deployment of clean and efficient energy technologies you can really start making a big impact."
Even the report's most optimistic scenario of a 16 percent CO2 emissions cut by 2050 would have a two-thirds chance of exceeding the EU temperature target, estimated Meinshausen.
Story by Gerard Wynn
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
Norwich, incidentally, is a world leader in climatic research and pioneering studies on climate change/global warming.
Tyndall centre
