'Sobering Facts' In UN Report Show Global Warming Targets Fading Fast

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/11/21-9




'Sobering Facts' In UN Report Show Global Warming Targets Fading Fast
- Common Dreams staff
Published on Wednesday, November 21, 2012 by Common Dreams

Meeting the worldwide goal of stalling global warming at a two degree- Celsius increase by 2020 is increasingly unlikely, according a UN Environment Program (UNEP) report released Wednesday.

As countries prepare to gather next week at a major United Nations meeting on climate change in Doha, Qatar, or COP18, the UN released the new report claiming that the concentration of warming gases has increased by an alarming 20 per cent since 2000 -- emphasizing that agreements made in the Kyoto Protocol no longer keep up with the rate of warming.

"Action on climate change needs to be scaled-up and accelerated without delay if the world is to have a running chance of keeping a global average temperature rise below two degrees Celsius this century," the UN stated Wednesday.

At the current rate, as a result of subsequently inadequate provisions of Kyoto, global average temperatures could rise by three to five degrees Celsius (5.4 to 9.0 degrees Fahrenheit) this century -- far greater than the two degrees Celsius originally targeted, said the UN.