A majority of developed and developing nations met the Jan. 31 deadline, the first leg of a global effort to combat greenhouse gas
By Sarah Wolfe
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Major nations hit the Jan. 31 deadline for emission goals, the first target of the Copenhagen Accord. India has said it aims to cut its carbon emissions by 20-25 percent by 2020, compared with 2005 levels. Using that same time frame, China is planning to hit a 40-45 percent reduction and South Korea a 30 percent cut.
All in all, 55 developed and developing countries including the US, the 27 nations of the EU, China, India, Japan and Brazil responded with promises to either make absolute cuts or to reduce the rate of increase from a business-as-usual curve, according to The New York Times. Mexico and Russia have yet to respond.
The UN has said the countries that have filed so far account for 78 percent of greenhouse gas emissions globally.
Though the Copenhagen Accord, created during December’s UN Climate Change Conference, doesn’t bind countries to their pledges and doesn’t have a deadline for reaching a formal international climate change treaty, the UN sees the targets as a positive first step toward combating global warming. He believes, however, “greater ambition is required to meet the scale of the challenge.”
There is doubt from analysts of reaching scientists’ recommended goal of lowering global warming to less than 3.6 degrees above the pre-industrial era – even if all nations fulfilled their emission targets.
“The pledges put on the table to date do not put us on track to meet that goal and will make it very difficult for us politically and technically beyond 2020 to meet that target,” Alden Meyer, Director of Strategy and Policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, was reported saying in The New York Times.
The Copenhagen Accord’s Jan. 31 deadline did mark a milestone, however, in encouraging developing nations with rising emissions to formally commit to a plan to cut greenhouse gas.
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(Edited by Militza Richard)