“Token Gestures”

“The cuts in greenhouse gas emissions being proposed at the Copenhagen climate conference, which opens today, are completely inadequate to stop dangerous climate change, one of Britain’s leading climate scientists warns,” reports The Independent. “Current proposals, including recent ones from major emitting nations such as the US, China and India, are “little more than token gestures”, compared to what the science deems necessary to give even a 50-50 chance of staying below the danger threshold, says Professor Kevin Anderson, Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of Manchester. Writing in The Independent today, Professor Anderson cautions that with the commitments currently on the table in Copenhagen, global emissions of carbon dioxide will peak far too late for temperature rises to stay below two degrees Centigrade above the pre-industrial level, which is regarded as the limit that the earth and human society can safely stand.”