Sunday Telegraph: Despite the IPCC’s stark warnings, there is widespread agreement from climate change activists, sceptics and, privately, UK Government officials, that the summit in Paris is unlikely to achieve a legally-binding deal.
Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the UN IPCC, opened the Copenhagen summit by acknowledging the “seeming hopelessness of addressing climate change” but imploring policymakers to “avoid being overcome” by it. “It is not hopeless,” he said, calling on governments to make decisions “informed by the science”.
Benny Peiser, of the climate-sceptic Global Warming Policy Foundation, said the IPCC report contents would not translate to agreement on a deal in Paris. “On the science there is no real discrepancy: the governments agree we should make sure warming isn’t more than 2C. But when it really comes to caps on their CO2 emissions there is simply no chance of a [legally binding] agreement whatsoever,” he said.
“There are a number of countries that simply can’t afford to forgo the cheap energy they are sitting on, countries like India and China. They will make sure they can use the cheap fossil fuels they have under their feet.”...
Sunday Times: Carbon Dioxide emissions must be reduced by almost half by 2030 or global temperatures will eventually rise by between 2C and 5C, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will warn today. The body will say it will be clear within six years if the threat of “dangerous” climate change has been averted….
However, Benny Peiser, director of the climate-sceptic Global Warming Policy Foundation, said the impact of CO2 levels on the atmosphere remained “open to question”.
He added that, “mainly for economic reasons”, it was very unlikely big emitters such as India and China would be able to cap their emissions.
He said: “There is a big scientific debate about the lack of global warming over the last 15 years. The question of what happens if we double the level of CO2, will it cause little more warming or much more warming, that remains an open question.”
