More frequent moments in the climate change debate as emissions continue

Huntingford, Chris ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5941-7770; Friedlingstein, Pierre. 2015 More frequent moments in the climate change debate as emissions continue. Environmental Research Letters, 10 (12). https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/10/12/121001

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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/10/12/121001

Abstract/Summary

Recent years have witnessed unprecedented interest in how the burning of fossil fuels may impact on the global climate system. Such visibility of this issue is in part due to the increasing frequency of key international summits to debate emissions levels, including the 2015 21st Conference of Parties meeting in Paris. In this perspective we plot a timeline of significant climate meetings and reports, and against metrics of atmospheric greenhouse gas changes and global temperature. One powerful metric is cumulative CO2 emissions that can be related to past and future warming levels. That quantity is analysed in detail through a set of papers in this ERL focus issue. We suggest it is an open question as to whether our timeline implies a lack of progress in constraining climate change despite multiple recent keynote meetings—or alternatively—that the increasing level of debate is encouragement that solutions will be found to prevent any dangerous warming levels?

Item Type:	Publication - Article
Digital Object Identifier (DOI):	https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/10/12/121001
UKCEH and CEH Sections/Science Areas:	Reynard
ISSN:	1748-9326
Additional Information. Not used in RCUK Gateway to Research.:	Open Access paper - full text available via Official URL link.
Additional Keywords:	climate change, global warming, IPCC, cumulative emissions, carbon dioxide, COP21
NORA Subject Terms:	Economics Meteorology and Climatology Atmospheric Sciences
Date made live:	01 Mar 2016 13:59 +0 (UTC)
URI:	https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/513161

Item Type:

Publication - Article

Digital Object Identifier (DOI):

https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/10/12/121001

UKCEH and CEH Sections/Science Areas:

Reynard

ISSN:

1748-9326

Additional Information. Not used in RCUK Gateway to Research.:

Open Access paper - full text available via Official URL link.

Additional Keywords:

climate change, global warming, IPCC, cumulative emissions, carbon dioxide, COP21