Temperature targets may be ‘slipping out of reach’

A LACK of international will means the chances of bringing climate change under control may already be “slipping out of reach”, scientists have warned.

New research shows that without an early and steep cut in greenhouse gas emissions, global temperatures are not “likely” to remain less than 2C higher than pre-industrial levels.

The 2C target, which experts say is needed to avert dangerous climate change, was agreed at the UN climate conference in Copenhagen in 2009.

But countries that signed up to the Copenhagen Accord have yet to commit to measures far-reaching enough to meet it, according to experts.

A voluntary agreement hammered out at last December’s UN climate talks in the Danish capital is said to fall well short of the cuts required.

The new report, published yesterday in the journal Nature Climate Change, suggests that for a “likely” chance (more than 66 per cent) of holding warming below 2C by the end of this century, emissions must peak before 2020.

Emission levels will also have to drop drastically to around 44 billion tonnes in 2020, and then keep falling.