European plans to keep world temperatures within safe limits are dangerously inadequate and must be much more ambitious before they can form the template for global action, a new report warns today.
The alert comes as governments converge on Poznan, Poland, to negotiate the future of international efforts to tackle climate change.
The report, from development agency Christian Aid, warns that although the European Union's plans on climate change are currently the most ambitious on offer, if adopted across the industrialised world then there would be a real risk of disastrous global warming.
'Projections by Christian Aid partner EcoEquity reveal that if all rich countries took action in line with existing EU plans, then global temperature rises could be as high as 3oC by 2100,' said Alison Doig, Christian Aid's senior adviser on climate change.
EcoEquity's projections are taken from its model of how the world's climate will respond to different levels of global emissions between now and 2050.
'The significance of a potential 3oC rise cannot be overstated - scientists predict that a global rise of more than 2oC will send the climate system into chaos,' added Doig.
'The poor, in particular, living in countries already bearing the brunt of climate change through floods, drought and desertification, will face immense hardship.
'Christian Aid is not saying the package of measures should be scrapped - it wants them strengthened. The EU, which says it is committed to keeping the global rise below 2oC, should take on domestic emissions cuts of at least 40 per cent by 2020.
'It should also commit to financing a similar level of reductions in developing countries. Only with that level of action can it claim to be truly leading the world towards a low-carbon future.'
Christian Aid warns that time is running out for the governments of the world to come up with an effective, realistic and just agreement on collectively tackling climate change.
Poznan is a vital opportunity for the international community to agree a shared vision for the negotiations that will lead up to the climate summit in Copenhagen late next year at which targets for the next phase of the Kyoto Protocol must be agreed.
The present phase, known as the first commitment period, runs out in 2012, and it will take at least two years for governments to ratify whatever is agreed in Copenhagen.
Christian Aid says the shared vision that should emerge in Poznan must encompass a high level of ambition for deep emissions cuts, and powerful financing and technology transfer mechanisms from rich countries, to enable developing countries to cut their own emissions without compromising their people's right to development.
Unless that principle of equity lies at the very heart of that shared vision, then developing countries will rightly resist singing any agreement in Copenhagen.
[ Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not of Reuters. ]
A destroyed bulldozer is seen at a burned area in the forest at the coastal town of Laguna Verde, some 115 km (71 miles) northwest of Santiago, in this March 6, ...
