The greenhouse gas cuts promised by developed countries will not be enough to stop the world’s temperatures from rising by 2 degrees and crossing a threshold into dangerous climate change, new analysis shows.
Chinese research, published online today in the US Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that up until 2005 emissions from the US, Europe, Australia and other rich nations were responsible for between 60 and 80 per cent of all global warming.
In a controversial assertion, the paper also lays ”ethical responsibility” at the feet of developed countries, even though China’s own greenhouse gas output has surged ahead since 2006, making it responsible for over a quarter of the world’s total human emissions of carbon dioxide.
Australian researchers who reviewed the findings yesterday said the analysis was valid, although they questioned the relevance of solely blaming developed nations for human-induced global warming.
The paper, which was compiled by 37 Chinese climate researchers and modelling statisticians, says: ”The results of this study show that the emissions-reduction commitments by developed countries in the Cancun pledges cannot effectively curb climate change, nor does it reflect their historical ethical responsibility, which still accounts for greater than half of the total climate change impacts by 2005, despite the rapid growth in emissions from the developing world.
”Thus stronger mitigation efforts by developed countries are needed to keep temperature rise below the 2° C objective on the basis of equity in the future.”
China’s boom resulted in it overtaking the US in 2006 as the world’s biggest emissions emitter.
A report by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency and the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre showed that Chinese emissions had reached 7.2 tonnes of carbon dioxide per person each year - only just below Europe’s average of 7.5 tonnes. Australia emerged as the biggest per capita emitter among major nations, with 19 tonnes per person.
A University of NSW climate researcher, Ben McNeill, said the Chinese study could have been extended to 2010 or 2011 to include more recent data, but that this would have diluted the argument that developed countries were mainly to blame.
