The Paris-based International Energy Agency predicts greenhouse gas emissions will increase from current levels a full 57% by 2030. Put simply, the IEA forecast suggests we don't have a remote hope of reaching the GHG emission cuts that even Stephen Harper pretends to want.
The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has set a target of limiting global warming to no more than 2.4 C. In its most optimistic scenario the IPCC sas COs emissions would have to peak by 2015 at the latest and then decline by somewhere between 50 and 85% by 2050.
The IEA forecast maintains there will be no peak until at least 2020 whereas to meet the IPCC's goal of 450 ppm of CO2 the peak would actually have to be 2012.
The Agency also predicts we won't make the IPCC's target of limiting warming to 2.4 C. The IEA believes we'll hit at least 3C at best. The IEA warns that temperatures could actually climb to 6C if China and India continue their coal-fueled industrial growth. I don't even want to go into what that would mean for most of the world.
And in other global warming news, humpbacks and fin whales are now joining grey whales in migrating in search of food far into the Beaufort Sea, several hundred miles past their normal feeding grounds of the Bering Sea. And Atlantic City's population of three-million is three months away from completely running out of water. Hey, anyone know how many shopping days left to Christmas?
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