IPCC official confident about Copenhagen summit

In two weeks at least 65 world leaders are set to meet in a conference centre in Copenhagen to put together a framework to reduce carbon emissions beyond 2012 and thus attempt to slow down global warming.

Sceptics say the 12-day United Nations climate change conference is unlikely to produce any results and that the gathering might even be postponed until next year.

But Jean-Pascal van Ypersale, vice-chair of the Geneva -based Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, told Swisster that the meeting “will happen” on December 7, as planned.

And Van Ypersale remains hopeful that a UN deal to reduce carbon emissions on worldwide scale could be clinched in the Danish capital. Such emissions contribute to global warming.

“I am confident there will be a deal signed in Copenhagen because everybody has realised that what is at stake is the habitability of the only planet we have”, he said.

The IPCC assesses climate change and its potential socio-economic and environmental impact.

In its last assessment report two years ago, it said that a global average rise in temperature of two degrees from levels in the pre-industrial era would be "unbearable", Van Ypersele said.

Before the industrial revolution – when major human-created carbon emissions began – the earth's temperature averaged 15 degrees.

It currently sits around the 16-degree mark, Van Ypersele said. Now many G20 and G8 leaders have agreed on a global target of restoring it to the 18th century benchmark.

Van Ypersele said this is feasible. “The question is not whether this is possible but whether we want to do it,” he said.

“It will require international collaboration and sharing of resources and knowledge.”

The average Swiss citizen produces approximately 10 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions per year, a US citizen 25 tonnes and someone living on the African continent less than one tonne.

In order to reach the temperature target, developed countries will need to reduce carbon emissions by 25-40 percent by 2020 and 80-95 percent by 2050 (compared to 1990).

They will also be required to find funding for developing countries to fight this.

“The atmosphere doesn’t know borders and whether CO2 is emitted from New York city or Timbuktu, it has the same impact on the environment,” said van Ypersele.

He explained that, providing nations cooperated effectively, in order to pay for this countries would have to reduce their GDP by just 0.12 percent per year until 2050.

“This is a ridiculously small price to pay to stay under warming that would be considered dangerous by most”, he said.

Some of the leaders due to attend said the summit, who are to include Germany’s chancellor Angela Merkel and US president Barack Obama, agreed the meeting will be “the first in a process”.

Meanwhile, the IPCC says that targets will be achievable only if global emissions start to stabilize by 2015.

Last Wednesday, the United Nations issued a report saying that population growth since 1820 is responsible for up to 60 percent of greenhouse gas emissions.

It said measures such as family planning could have a positive influence on reducing climate change.