Rising carbon emissions may nullify the profit of current climate policies

A dramatic change of trends: While the last decade showed slightly falling carbon emissions, things have worsened. According to UN Deputy Director-General for the Environment Yvo de Boer, the global community must prepare and anticipate invariable changes: “We have to react quickly; otherwise it will be very expensive”.

He referred to scientific studies that support this thesis, and thus follows the same discourse as former Chief Economist and Senior Vice-President of the World Bank Nicholas Stern, who predicts a global recession if the consequences of the climate change are not acted upon.

The report shows in detail that the development has gone in the wrong direction. The most important benchmark for the measurement of human influence on the world climate is the emission of carbon into the air. The UN report shows that it is increasing rapidly. Since the year 2000, the exhaust of carbon has increased by a full 2.4 percent. This begs the question whether we are on the right track away from the climate catastrophe, and what measures must be taken in order to increase our effort?

Read the UN press release in PDF here