Official: 2010 a record year for CO2 emissions – a challenge for Durban

The International Energy Agency has recently reported that 2010 was a record year for carbon dioxide emissions. Against this background many are playing down expectation that COP 17   (The UN mediated Conference of the Parties) scheduled for Durban at the end of November will achieve any real progress towards a binding international agreement on emissions.

Greg Barker,Minister of State at the Department for Energy & Climate Change, has been quoted as saying a more pragmatic approach will be needed to achieve any progress with the realistic target being an agreement by the end of the

Smoke billows from chimneys at an industrial district near Tokyo - Reuters

decade.” What we should do is start agreeing that is where we need to get to, and put in place a framework that allows us to get there in a realistic timetable,” he added in an interview for Reuters on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Mumbai.

However recent research indicates that this puts the attainment of the UN’s own target of +2 Centidrade as a ‘safe’ increase in increasing doubt. A recent set of papers from the Royal Society discussed the implications for the world warming to +4 C and beyond. In the light of the above this is something we may want to think about in Durban.