These two graphics from the Climate Interactive website are probably the clearest and most easy to understand images i’ve seen yet detailing the fallout from COP15. The ‘potential’ proposals (highlighted in green) are alot more promising than the official confirmed proposals. Some of these seem incredibly ambitious, such as Costa Rica proposing 0% emissions by 2021 (although Costa Rica is 99% clean energy already).
In the grand scheme of things, what does this mean? The Sustainability Institute have simulated the effects of CO2 emissions under the COP15 scenarios and determined the impacts upon atmospheric CO2 concentrations and temperature increase over pre-industrial levels.
The results aren’t pretty – under the current confirmed proposals, in 2100 we would see CO2 levels peak at 780ppm – far above the recommended 350ppm for the worlds coral reefs. Even the low emissions pathway would see the world at 470ppm by the end of the century, and the ‘business as usual scenario’ is incredibly concerning.
Along these lines, we’ve added a global ‘scorecard’ to the front page that calculates the increases in global temperature using the information above. The scorecard and analysis is updated continuously – when the proposals change, the position of the blue line on the thermometer changes:
