Environment & Energy

xchrom

(108,903 posts) Tue Nov 20, 2012, 09:40 AM Nov 2012

'Politicians Haven't Listened' Merkel Climate Advisor Blasts Global Inaction

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/merkel-climate-advisor-blasts-politicians-for-doing-too-little-a-868024.html

The global political community's weak action on combating climate change has left the world in serious danger before the century's end, climate scientists warn. According to a new report from the World Bank, climatologists almost unanimously agree that the earth's temperature will increase by 4 degrees Celsius (7.2 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100, leading to massive food shortages and drought.

As representatives from almost 200 countries prepare to meet next week in Doha, Qatar to reach agreement on measures to slow global warming, climate scientists are sounding the alarm for more aggressive action. Climate change must become a priority they say.
Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, a leading German climate scientist and the government's chief advisor on climate-related issues, warns that the goal of keeping global warming below two degrees Celsius by 2100 will only be possible with a massive rethinking of priorities. "We're currently on a course to see a 3.5 to 4 degree (6.3 to 7.2 degree Fahrenheit) change by the end of the century," Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), told SPIEGEL. "We've stressed time and again, that we need nothing less than a new industrial revolution, but many politicians haven't listened. They've just sat back."

Schellnhuber says that the European Union could easily achieve a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent by 2020 relative to 1990, instead of the 20 percent it has committed to. Schellnhuber asked Chancellor Angela Merkel to form a "coalition of the willing." But unfortunately, he said, climate change is "not the highest priority" for Germany's leader.