Businesses urged to cut carbon emissions

By siliconindia   |   Tuesday, 29 September 2009, 19:56 IST
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Bangalore: Following a new research, businesses have been urged to further work to cut carbon emissions and increase investment in climate change adaptation. The study by the UK-based Hadley Centre, suggests average global temperatures are on track to rise by four degree Celsius within many people's lifetimes. The research also says that the catastrophic increase in temperature could occur as early as 2060 if global greenhouse gas emissions do not peak within the next few years, reports BusinessGreen. The research will be presented at a scientific conference at Oxford University, which brings together research intended to update the United Nation's (UN) official 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, which warned temperatures were likely to rise by four degree Celsius by 2100. Asher Minns, Communication Manager of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research said that the UN goal of avoiding 'dangerous' levels of climate change of over two degree Celsius was looking increasingly unfeasible. Minns stressed that it was essential that governments and businesses continued to accelerate efforts to cut carbon emissions in order to give the best chance of limiting temperature rises to two degree Celsius, but he added that there also had to be an increased focus on how to protect people and economies from the worst impacts of climate change. Over the past two years, climate scientists have warned that the current rate of emissions growth and temperature rises exceed the IPCC's worse-case scenario. Temperature rises in excess of six degree Celsius are therefore likely by the end of the century. New computer models which include the likely impact of so-called carbon feedbacks, where rising temperatures result in increased carbon emissions from natural sources, have now predicted that a four degree Celsius rise could occur by 2060 or 2070.

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