World climate change goal at risk as emissions surge, says UN

A global goal for limiting climate change is slipping out of reach and governments may have to find ways to artificially suck greenhouse gases from the air if they fail to make deep cuts in rising emissions by 2030, a draft UN report said.

A 25-page draft summary, by the UN panel of climate experts and due for publication next year, said emissions of heat-trapping gases rose to record levels in the decade to 2010, led by Asian industrial growth.

The surge is jeopardising a UN goal, set by almost 200 nations in 2010, to limit a rise in temperatures to below 2 degrees Celsius above levels before the Industrial Revolution, according to the text seen by Reuters on Friday.

The panel, made up hundreds of the world’s top climate scientists, is trying to condense all the peer reviewed findings since 2007 into a summary for policymakers.

Its draft said that if emissions were not checked by 2030, they would be so great that governments would have to take carbon dioxide out of the air to limit rising temperatures by the end of the century - not just cut emissions spewed from cars and factories - a sea change in the approach to climate change.

Governments must sign off on the document that emerges from the draft by Working Group Three of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and which will serve as the climate policy road map for the next six or seven years.