(This is one of a series of fortnightly columns from Guyanese in the diaspora and others with an interest in issues related to Guyana and the Caribbean)
Dr Neville Trotz, Science Adviser to the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre, served as a member of the IPCC in the capacity of a Review Editor of Chapter 16 of the Fourth Assessment Report on Small Island Developing States. The IPCC’s collective effort was recognized with the award of a Nobel Prize in 2008.
350 ppm
By Neville Trotz
During the forthcoming months this year, leading up to the Conference Of Parties (COP) of the United Nations Frame-work Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) scheduled for Copenhagen in December, the quantity ‘350 ppm’ (parts per million) is expected to gain “prominence and significance” globally among populations affected by global climate change.
To comprehend the basis of this expectation let us take a step backward and examine the evolution following the global consensus which led to the ratification of the UNFCCC in 1992. The ultimate objective of the Convention is to stabilize the concentration of atmospheric Green House Gases (GHGs) so as not to produce dangerous impacts on climate systems. In earlier pronouncements on this issue, the most common benchmark for safe GHG levels in the atmosphere was set at 550 ppm representing a doubling of the pre-industrial level of GHG concentrations. Despite this explicit articulation of the need for stabilization of global GHG concentrations there were no obligatory requirements for developed country signatories to the Convention to reduce the amount of GHGs they emitted into the atmosphere.
Not until the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol in February 2005 was there a stipulation limiting the extent of emissions from the developed country signatories to the Convention. But let us put the Protocol into perspective. In the 1990’s, scientists had posited that to prevent “dangerous climate change” it was essential that GHG concentrations in the atmosphere be reduced by 60% of the 1990 levels and that this ought to be accomplished by the year 2000!!! The Kyoto Protocol calls for a global reduction of 5.8% of the 1990 levels and for this to be accomplished between the years 2008 and 2012. Compare this action under the Protocol and that which was postulated by scientists to be essential if we were to avoid “dangerous climate change”.
It is obvious that the Protocol is, at best, a token response by the global community to the need for drastic action to limit global emissions to a desirable level. The delay in agreeing to the latter has resulted in a situation today where we are faced with the urgent need for the conclusion of a global successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol that calls for “aggressive action” by all countries especially the developed and rapidly developing (e.g. India, China) to curb the accumulation of GHGs in the atmosphere. The December meeting in Copenhagen is expected to result in the conclusion of such an agreement which will come into force when Kyoto expires in 2012.
Earlier last year the global community seemed to be settling for a target stabilization level of 450ppm of GHGs in the atmosphere. This would require a reduction in global emissions by at least 20% of present day levels (now 389ppm) by 2020 and by 50% by 2050 – a regime now espoused by the European Union. Such action would achieve the 450ppm level and limit global temperature increase to about 2⁰C . Our position as a region which is extremely vulnerable to climate change is that we can hardly cope with the vagaries of present day-climate much less with that which will result from a world that is 2⁰C warmer. However, we were setting our expectations at this level of stabilization as the best possible alternative. This approach received a rude shock with the publication of a research paper in the journal “Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics” by the distinguished American climate scientist James Hansen. In his paper, Hansen concluded that at present-day GHG concentrations (389 ppm) global GHG emissions were already past the tipping point where we could experience “dangerous climate”. To reverse this and avoid “dangerous climate change” he made a strong case for drastic and aggressive global action to return global emissions to a safe level of 350 ppm – hence the predicted “prominence and significance” of this figure posited at the beginning of this article. The thrust of Hansen’s article, apart from the warning about the danger of the present concentrations of GHGs, is that with global collaborative effort the 350ppm target is achievable, and he outlines pathways by which this target can be achieved in a desired time frame.
Indeed, the UK proposal already on the table, if other countries agree, for a 30% cut by 2020 and an 80% cut by 2050, is closer to the type of global action required to achieve the 350ppm goal and help to keep global temperature increase to about 1.5⁰C. With the new American administration fully on board and participating in the process leading up to the December meeting there is every likelihood for the conclusion of a global agreement to an aggressive post-Kyoto regime.
For us as Small Island Developing and Low Lying Coastal States of the Caribbean, we need to embrace the concept of 350 ppm as a stabilization target for the December meeting and strive with our developing country partners to pursue this goal. Already at the last meeting of the UNFCCC in Poznan, the Association Of Small Island States (AOSIS) group embraced this concept as a negotiating baseline and it behooves our political directorate in the region to assume the 350 ppm mantra and give it the highest visibility in their various interactions with the international community.
As scientific understanding of the climate change problematique improved, we have seen a shift in our perception of an acceptable level of GHG stabilization concentrations from 550ppm to 450ppm to 350ppm. Can the political will of the global community be inspired to accept this paradigm shift and deliver to generations to come a world that is safe from the vagaries of “dangerous climate change”???
