I wrote here recently about what the initial stakes of various big players are for Copenhagen. Lord Nicholas Stern, author of the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change, and one of the world’s leading experts on the economics of climate change and energy, says, in this “FT” op-ed piece yesterday, that with what’s on the table now, we are in easy striking distance of keeping the earth’s temperature rise at or below 2 degrees Celsius, a figure agreed upon at the G-8 Summit in July. “The intentions expressed over the past few months and weeks have moved us towards these goals.”
Others are not quite as hopeful about the impact of what’s being said by the EU, the US, China, India and the others. The good folks at Climate Interactive, the climate program of the Sustainability Institute, have put up a “scoreboard” for Copenhagen. They’re saying that what we’re seeing now in commitments keeps us at only a 3.8 degree rise. That will likely cause truly catastrophic change. Here’s the scoreboard itself. (You can click on a link for a video further explaining their approach and you can explore their analysis here.) They will keep the scoreboard updated during the conference.
Whatever the predictive power of this scoreboard, or Lord Stern’s analysis for that matter, it is important to get a sense of the inputs that are under such intense scrutiny now.
