June 10, 2009

expert reaction to Japan’s announcement on 2020 emissions targets

The Japanese government has announced its targets on limiting carbon dioxide emissions, which, at 15% over the next 11 years, have turned out to be lower than expected.

Dr Myles Allen, Department of Physics, University of Oxford, said:

“This reinforces the need for the UNFCCC negotiators to recognize that avoiding dangerous climate change will require us to limit cumulative emissions of carbon dioxide – that’s total emissions over the whole fossil fuel era. The more CO2 we emit in the 2020s, the less we can emit in the 2050s to stay under the same total.”