{"id":1266,"date":"2014-01-24T10:34:26","date_gmt":"2014-01-24T10:34:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kevinanderson.info\/blog\/?p=1266"},"modified":"2014-01-24T10:46:03","modified_gmt":"2014-01-24T10:46:03","slug":"1266","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/kevinanderson.info\/blog\/1266\/","title":{"rendered":"Weak EU decarbonisation target risks locking in dangerous climate change"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>22 Jan. 2014 <strong>\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/news\/modest-eu-climate-targets-criticized-1.14573\">&#8216;Modest&#8217; EU climate targets criticised<\/a><\/strong> \u00a0<strong>Nature<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Report by Quirin Schiermeier on the incompatibility of the EU Commission&#8217;s new 2030 decarbonisation target of 40% with the same Commission&#8217;s express commitment to make its fair contribution to avoiding the 2\u00b0C characterisation of dangerous climate change.<\/p>\n<p>As the report concludes:<\/p>\n<p>From a scientific viewpoint, the EU\u2019s 2030 target would need to be nearer to 80% than to 40%, agrees Kevin Anderson, an energy and climate scientist at the University of Manchester, UK, and deputy director of Manchester&#8217;s Tyndall Centre.<\/p>\n<p>Anderson has previously criticized the commission for misrepresenting probabilities \u2014 with \u201cdramatic consequences for the necessary scale of mitigation\u201d \u2014 of keeping atmospheric warming below 2 \u00b0C.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhilst political decisions are rightly the responsibility of politicians, it surely is incumbent on us as scientists to press hard for scientific consistency,\u201d he says. \u201cScientific uncertainties notwithstanding, I am surprised that so few scientists have been prepared to voice their concerns about the sheer scale of the shortfall.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"line-height: 1.714285714; font-size: 1rem;\">Nature\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><abbr style=\"line-height: 1.714285714; font-size: 1rem;\" title=\"Digital Object Identifier\">doi<\/abbr><span style=\"line-height: 1.714285714; font-size: 1rem;\">:10.1038\/nature.2014.14573<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>22 Jan. 2014 \u00a0&#8216;Modest&#8217; EU climate targets criticised \u00a0Nature Report by Quirin Schiermeier on the incompatibility of the EU Commission&#8217;s new 2030 decarbonisation target of 40% with the same Commission&#8217;s express commitment to make its fair contribution to avoiding the 2\u00b0C characterisation of dangerous climate change. As the report concludes: From a scientific viewpoint, the EU\u2019s 2030 target would need to be nearer to 80% than to 40%, agrees Kevin Anderson, an energy and climate scientist at the University of Manchester, UK, and deputy director of Manchester&#8217;s Tyndall Centre. Anderson has previously criticized the commission for misrepresenting probabilities \u2014 with\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":5}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/kevinanderson.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1266"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/kevinanderson.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/kevinanderson.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kevinanderson.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kevinanderson.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1266"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/kevinanderson.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1266\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1272,"href":"http:\/\/kevinanderson.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1266\/revisions\/1272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/kevinanderson.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kevinanderson.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kevinanderson.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}