2007 Bali Climate Declaration by Scientists
06 December 2007
An international group of more than 200 leading climate scientists have issued a declaration calling for a global target in 2050 of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 50% below their 1990 levels. The 2007 Bali Climate Declaration was issued in conjunction with the COP-13 meeting in Bali, Indonesia at which a successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol is under discussion.
The 2007 IPCC report, compiled by several hundred climate scientists, has unequivocally concluded that our climate is warming rapidly, and that we are now at least 90% certain that this is mostly due to human activities. The amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere now far exceeds the natural range of the past 650,000 years, and it is rising very quickly due to human activity. If this trend is not halted soon, many millions of people will be at risk from extreme events such as heat waves, drought, floods and storms, our coasts and cities will be threatened by rising sea levels, and many ecosystems, plants and animal species will be in serious danger of extinction.
The next round of focused negotiations for a new global climate treaty (within the 1992 UNFCCC process) needs to begin in December 2007 and be completed by 2009. The prime goal of this new regime must be to limit global warming to no more than 2º C above the pre-industrial temperature, a limit that has already been formally adopted by the European Union and a number of other countries.
Based on current scientific understanding, this requires that global greenhouse gas emissions need to be reduced by at least 50% below their 1990 levels by the year 2050. In the long run, greenhouse gas concentrations need to be stabilised at a level well below 450 ppm (parts per million; measured in CO2-equivalent concentration). In order to stay below 2 ºC, global emissions must peak and decline in the next 10 to 15 years, so there is no time to lose.
As scientists, we urge the negotiators to reach an agreement that takes these targets as a minimum requirement for a fair and effective global climate agreement.
Keep shouting. Polluters fill the air with their pollutions with enough left over to seemingly block their eardrums.
Posted by: litesong | 06 December 2007 at 09:48 AM
OMG, I thought it would be bad but this is really bad. 50% requires major changes to lifestyle and our economies. I've read some studies from some economists and they try to do this minimalizing - best bang for the buck - with more money going to try to acclimatize our infrastructure to the changes coming. Considering the political climate of the first world, I don't know if anythings ever going to get done. If Kyoto was more seriously implemented in the first place maybe things wouldn't be as bad. Hopefully this will try to get some asses moving.
Posted by: aym | 06 December 2007 at 09:39 PM
50% GHG reduction is quite doable, in my opinion. If pollution is essentially inefficiency, ad you look around you in the US, you quickly realize how much waste there is in our system. Europe uses something like half the energy of the US, and they don't suffer from a low standard of living, quite the contrary. Here in California we emit half the GHGs of Texas (although admittedly our weather is better) and the economy is doing fine, better than most of the more "wasteful" states. I personally emit half the GHGs of the average Californian, and I don't consider myself terribly unhappy (just a little morose :-)
It's a bit like someone who weighs 300 pounds saying they'll starve if they go on a diet. It won't be easy, they should do it intelligently by eating the best foods, but they won't starve. In fact, they'll be healthier in the end, and so will we.
Posted by: Jeff R | 07 December 2007 at 12:32 AM
Gee, since we raised the global temeperaute all of 0.17 degrees C in the entire 20th century, then more of the same would raise the temperature to only 0.34 degrees C warmer than 1900. That is much less than the 2 full degrees they want us to acomplish by 2100 AD.
Declare victory! Mission Accomplished ! The Job is done...
Seriously, most of that rise in temperature happened by 1940 when CO2 increase was insignificant.
There hasn't been any warming in the past ten years.
Scince is showing the GHGs are responible for but 10% of ther power to alter climate as we originally thought or feared. All GHGs are no longer rising,and now in control, except for CO2. And solar scientists are now predicting the Sun is going into a quiescent phase of the next half century or so, producing less intense heat and light.
Oil demand is going to collapse in the next decade as we substitute electrons for hydrocarbons, and therefore so will CO2 output.
Global Warming can join the ranks of Acid Rain, Dying Oceans, Population Bombs, Coming Ice Ages, and other End of the World nonsense, as footnotes corroborating the madness of crowds...
Posted by: Stan Peterson | 08 December 2007 at 02:04 PM
They are 90% sure? What data is in that other 10% and why is it we do not hear them discussing that?
Given that these people tell us everyday how sure they are, how ready and willing they are to disrupt the economies of Nations, what would be needed for them to keep that 10% uncertainty???
It is interesting that the scientist who do this work rely on the funding from the industrial Nations for their money. Are they so sure about all of this that they personally would be willing to stop taking millions of dollars in scientific grant funding, to aid the developed nations in dealing with the cost of all this?
I am guessing the answer to that is no.
Posted by: Heather | 10 December 2007 at 07:55 AM
@Stan,
There hasn't been warming in the past 10 years? Solar output will decrease in the next 50 years? In the past 14 years, we have seen the highest 9-10 years (since the forties in the US) around the world. Do we have control over the methane stored in the permafrost when we know the glacial ice in Greenland is melting? Or any other stored gasses as the wild fires in California has shown or the gas hydrates in the sea?
As for solar output, it looks to be that we are starting to go into a new 11 year max cycle. The evidence of the 90 year cycle is not as recognized or as strong and it is not a fact among solar scientists. It certainly isn't a certaintly that solar flux is going down. Look at the theory of global dimming as an example of something pushing it up for example.
Without the concepts of GW, where does the legislative/economic framework be developed or come from that would promote EV's or PHEV's? They are more expensive to develope and their infrastructures are not even in place. It's a catch-22 situation for your view. No one is going to put money in green vehicles or clean energy if GW is a bust. At least not until oil is much more expensive than now.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_output
@Heather,
at the last IPCC meeting where this language was written, there was a movement to upgrade this so that the language would represent a 99%+ probability. Problem? The IPCC contains political elements as well. According the press (AP feed), the groups that blocked this were politcal elements from the US, China and Saudi Arabia mostly. As for the millions, what climate scientists want is not more money for study but for people and countries to spend money into the reduction of GH gasses. A problem that will cost trillions of dollars and if not alleviated somehow will cost many more trillions of dollars as well in lives.
Posted by: aym | 10 December 2007 at 12:53 PM
If you can use biofuels, hybrids and recycle some of the CO2 we might reduce our emissions of CO2 by this amount. It takes a major national effort through leadership. We lack that leadership at the present time.
Posted by: sjc | 11 December 2007 at 09:20 AM
For Stan and other climate change skeptics:
1. The years 1997 - 2007 were the hottest years on record since 1880 (2007 was the fifth hottest year on record with 2005 still holding the record for the hottest).
2. The current levels of atmospheric CO2 are greater than they've been for over 650,000 years.
3. In 2007 total arctic sea ice decreased by more than 23 percent of the previous low in 2005.
4. In 2007 Greenland glacial melt increased by 15% year on year and is 3 times the rate of 1980.
5. CO2 warming has a long tail. Meaning the warming we're seeing now is due to emissions produced approx 20 or more years ago. So what we've seen so far is just the beginning.
6. 90% of scientists agree that global warming is occurring and that humankind is the cause. It is very rare to have this level of scientific consensus on anything. Are you willing to go against the professional opinion of the leaders in the scientific community?
With each passing year the world is warming more and more rapidly. With various known and unknown feedbacks to warming, the more we push the world into the hot zone the more we risk crossing some invisible point of no return where warming runs away from our control and results in a runaway greenhouse gas effect as visible on our neighbor Venus. Such scenarios were considered sci-fi until a NASA scientist -- James Hansen -- began to research the possibility seriously.
If NASA says human CO2 emissions could ultimately result in a runaway greenhouse effect on Earth, then, in my opinion, it's foolhardy not to sit up and listen.
For my part, I hope the Bali conference is more effective than Kyoto. We need a solid world regime for change.
Posted by: Robert | 14 December 2007 at 11:07 PM