The magazine of the european research area European Commission Copenhagen, a missed chance?

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CONTENTS

 4 In 

brief

Zeitgeist

SPECIAL REPORT

 

CLIMATE

SPECIAL REPORT 

CLIMATE

6 research*eu No. 63 | MARCH 2010

 research*eu No. 63 | MARCH 2010 

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The IPCC (International Panel on Climate 

Change) had to wait 17 years before seeing 

its objectives translated into quantified targets, 

the famous 2°C temperature increase threshold. 

Although the IPCC Vice-Chair, the climatologist 

Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, believes it is a figure 

that should be regarded with caution, the 

progress it has represented should not be 

under-estimated. Today, governments the world 

over are being urged to act quickly to review 

targets that are deemed insufficient. 

 

Our dependence on oil – this fossil fuel that 

we must abandon, and not only because 

Copenhagen, 

a missed chance?

its reserves are depleted – is slowly beginning 

to end. There is increasing research on other 

energy sources. Also, after the false start 

of the first generation agrofuels that proved 

so costly, biofuels remain full of promise.  

But the situation is urgent, that much 

we do know. Evidence of the impact of global 

warming on ecosystems is growing all the time. 

Until recently we were not sure, for example, 

that carbon dioxide would change sea water 

composition to the point of threatening marine 

ecosystems and biodiversity. We now know 

this to be the case and ocean acidification 

has been added to the list of worrying 

environmental problems. 

The figures are growing more accurate and 

the climate models more refined as the projections 

acquire more precise degrees of probability but 

grow ever more sombre in the process. Science 

is advancing, albeit without absolute certainty 

and thus amid debate. So much the better. 

Witness these scientists whom we have grouped 

together as ‘climate sceptics’ and who continue 

to doubt the anthropic origin of global warming 

and/or the sound basis of the measures 

proposed to combat it.  

Recent years have brought demands for greater 

political commitment and a total review of 

our consumption practices, but without really 

achieving the hoped for effects. The agreements 

reached at the Copenhagen Climate Summit 

last December are the most recent example. 

But these injunctions are causing us to leave 

our fool’s paradise in which we knew nothing 

and wasted everything. We must now reach 

the other shore. 

© CNRS Phot

othèque/Er

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an Amic

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Penguins (Pygoscelis 

adeliae) on a small iceberg 

drifting in Adélie Land 

(Antarctica).

  Interview