Climate Change: Meeting the Challenge to 2050 Page: 3
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CLIMATE CHANGE: MEETING THE CHALLENGE TO 2050
How fast will they If no new action is taken, global greenhouse gas emissions are expected to
grow in the future? grow by about 52% by 2050, according to simulations prepared by the OECD.
But the increase will be faster outside the OECD area; the OECD share of
global GHG emissions will fall to 33% in 2050 from 40%.
Energy-related CO2 emissions are forecast to grow even more rapidly,
increasing by 78% between 2005 and 2050 if no new action is taken to curb
them, largely as a result of increased coal and natural gas use to support
growing demand for electricity. Global emissions of CO2 from the transport
sector are meanwhile expected to double by 2050 as the demand for cars
increases, particularly in developing countries.
Methane emissions from sources such as solid waste disposal on land, animal
digestive processes, natural gas pipelines and rice production are projected
to increase in line with expanding production of animal products and rice,
increasing 47% from 2005 to 2050. Global N20 emissions from agriculture,
industry and other sources will meanwhile increase by about 26% by 2050.
HFCs and PFCs were introduced to replace chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which
were depleting the ozone layer, but they themselves have a high global
warming potential and will nearly quadruple by 2050, contributing roughly 4%
of the total change in GHG emissions from 2005.
Though these projections may seem dramatic, they are on the low side of the
range of emission scenarios produced by various experts.
How can To slow and then limit climate change will require an international effort
policies help? over the long term. The main international means to address climate change
is the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which has
been ratified by 189 countries.
The declared objective of the UN Convention is: "... stabilisation of greenhouse
gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous
anthropogenic interference with the climate system... within a time-frame sufficient to
allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change to ensure that food production
is not threatened and to enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable
manner." By signing the Convention, OECD countries and other industrialised
nations agreed to take the lead to achieve this objective, as well as to provide
financial and technical assistance to other countries to help them address
climate change.
The Kyoto Protocol, which entered into force in 2005, helps governments to
put the Convention into practice. In it, a number of industrialised countries
(the "Annex I Parties") make commitments to individual, legally binding
targets to limit or reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 2008-2012. But
these are just the first steps towards tackling climate change. Governments
knew this when they adopted the Convention and the Protocol and this has
become even clearer today, as several large developing countries, such as
China and India, have seen their economies and energy demand grow rapidly
in the intervening years, with large increases in emissions as a result.
The current internationally-agreed mitigation targets apply only to
industrialised countries and do not extend beyond 2012. Successfully limiting
emissions in order to stabilise atmospheric GHG concentrations at a levelOECD 2008 *3
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OECD. Climate Change: Meeting the Challenge to 2050, text, February 1, 2008; (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc501481/m1/3/: accessed April 23, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; .