Crikey Insider (2.11.15) has provided an overview of the UN’s ‘Synthesis Report’:
‘Everything’s on track to reduce global CO2 emissions in an orderly fashion, says the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), except for the fact that the world is likely to suffer close to a 3-degrees rise in temperature by 2100, and possibly greater.
Meanwhile Australia’s contribution has been judged one of the most inadequate, putting it well behind numerous developing countries, facing a raft of social and economic challenges, with the “Direct Action” policy making us the worst performer in the industrialised world. (our emphasis)
‘That’s the takeaway from the just-released “synthesis report” of the UNFCCC, produced ahead of the Conference of Parties 21 (COP21) conference in Paris, beginning at the end of the month. The “synthesis report” brings together individual country reports on their emissions policy, the so-called “intended nationally determined contributions” (INDC) provided by 155 countries covering 88% of the world population.
‘The UNFCCC is presenting the final figures in a straight fashion, but wrapping them in something of a bow, with UNFCCC executive secretary Christiana Figueres calling them a “determined down-payment on a new era of climate ambition”, which appears to be a double-distancing from a statement of actual achievement.
‘In fact, the synthesis report projects, on the INDC figures, a rise in temperature of 2.7 degrees by 2100, way above the 2-degrees limit that has been set as the de facto boundary between major damage, and the start on the road to catastrophe. Yet even the 2.7 degrees figure has been disputed, with India’s Centre for Science and Environment arguing that the INDC projections, when recalculated, yield a climate rise of more than 3 degrees by 2100.’