2007 bali climate declaration by scientistsSMH 6/12/07 An article by Matthew England puts the case for scientists being the people who should be deciding what to do about Global Warming rather than big business. ".....Yet despite these achievements, climate scientists have generally steered clear of telling the world how to set its emissions targets. The attitude has always been this: climate scientists should stick to the science, not set policy. Fair enough." "But who is best placed to advise the world what greenhouse gas targets are needed to avoid dangerous climate change? Who should be setting the goals to reduce our carbon emissions over the coming years?" "The answer is definitely not the fossil fuel sector. That would be like asking a tobacco company CEO whether you should quit smoking. Or a fast food chain what constitutes a healthy meal. Read "conflict of interest" in flashing neon lights." "To be fair, we equally cannot rely on conservation societies and environmental lobby groups for advice here. They possibly have the right answers, but they are not the experts: their advice is only as good as their sources." "Climate scientists in contrast have analysed in detail what the climatic impacts are likely to be for a whole range of greenhouse gas emissions scenarios. Much of the IPCC reports are devoted to this exercise. And this has been an ongoing activity for the past 20 years. The science is not new; we are just living at a time when people have become aware of the findings because the predictions are urgent and dire." "A whole suite of future projections have been assembled in that time. At the high end is the "business as usual" case. One of my colleagues recently dubbed this "The George Bush" scenario. You can guess how this unfolds: we do nothing, and the planet is set on an unknown path toward unprecedented warming, severe storms, large-scale ecosystems extinctions and the displacement of tens of millions of environmental refugees.".. He then talks about the declaration, which we have produced below. It is signed by 212 of the world`s leading climate scientists. "The Bali Climate Declaration has made the scientific view on emissions targets patently clear. It is now over to the policy makers to give the planet a decent future." 2007 Bali Climate Declaration by Scientists This consensus document was prepared under the auspices of the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. The 2007 IPCC report, compiled by several hundred climate scientists, has unequivocally concluded that our climate is warming rapidly, and that we are now at least 90% certain that this is mostly due to human activities. The amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere now far exceeds the natural range of the past 650,000 years, and it is rising very quickly due to human activity. If this trend is not halted soon, many millions of people will be at risk from extreme events such as heat waves, drought, floods and storms, our coasts and cities will be threatened by rising sea levels, and many ecosystems, plants and animal species will be in serious danger of extinction. The next round of focused negotiations for a new global climate treaty (within the 1992 UNFCCC process) needs to begin in December 2007 and be completed by 2009. The prime goal of this new regime must be to limit global warming to no more than 2 ºC above the pre-industrial temperature, a limit that has already been formally adopted by the European Union and a number of other countries. Based on current scientific understanding, this requires that global greenhouse gas emissions need to be reduced by at least 50% below their 1990 levels by the year 2050. In the long run, greenhouse gas concentrations need to be stabilised at a level well below 450 ppm (parts per million; measured in CO2-equivalent concentration). In order to stay below 2 ºC, global emissions must peak and decline in the next 10 to 15 years, so there is no time to lose. As scientists, we urge the negotiators to reach an agreement that takes these targets as a minimum requirement for a fair and effective global climate agreement.
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