An attempt to prevent 2 degree temperature rise

BONN — The latest round of international climate talks, involving 190 countries, continues here, sche-duled to be completed on June 17. Among the issues on the agenda are ways to adjust to climate change, including technology exchanges and the raising of a special Green Fund for climate change financing. Reasons behind global warming are uppermost on the agenda, particularly the discharges of CO2 into the atmosphere that produce the greenhouse effect. Experts discuss ways to obligate countries to lower carbon emissions (previously an unsolvable problem). Scientific estimates show that to prevent the disastrous consequences of climate change the industrialized countries must reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80-95 percent before 2050. In other words, even now these countries have to work out and implement low-carbon development strategies. These strategies are binding on the developed countries and have a direct bearing on Ukraine.

Scientists say that the temperature of the planet may increase by two degrees, reaching a critical level. The head of the UN’s climate change secretariat, Christiana Figueres, says that during the talks in Bonn concrete steps must be taken to bridge the gap between what the scientists refer to as safe emissions and those proposed by member countries. This is very important considering that during the previous meeting in Me-xico half a year ago the member countries failed to come to terms on this issue.

Today scientists go even further in their apocalyptic forecasts, warning that unless the countries extend their greenhouse gas commitments, the temperature may increase by three to five degrees Centigrade. This would be a global disaster, including one on the food market. World media refer to a report of the Food and Agricultural Organization, saying that in the next two decades the prices of basic foods will be up more than twofold. As earlier reported, one of the topics on the Bonn agenda is the proliferation of low-carbon technologies. In early May 2011, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published a report to the effect that by 2050 mankind’s energy needs could be met by 80 percent by using renewable energy sources, and that this could be achieved when correctly stimulating the development of green energy. In other words, there already exist technologies that allow to lower CO2 emission. Here the problem is making political decisions, providing technological and financial support for the developing countries, and being prepared to change one’s economic pattern.

Another problem that previously seemed less apparent is how to lower greenhouse gas emissions from air- and seacraft. Scientists estimate that such emissions from international transport make up some four percent of the total sum, but this was not included in the Kyoto Protocol. As for Ukraine, its delegation once again raises the topical issue of transferring the unused quotas in its possession.

“There is still the open question of the format of the climate change agreement after 2012. Will it be an essentially new, comprehensive agreement with binding legal force to replace the Kyoto Protocol, with the United States among the signatories, or just the se-cond stage of the protocol? So far there is no consensus on the developed countries being under the obligation to tangibly reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” says Iryna Stavchuk, expert with the National Ecological Center of Ukraine.