The Copenhagen Accord reaffirms the importance of limiting global warming to 2 °C (3.6 °F), but current national commitments would lead to approximately 3.9 °C (7.0 °F) warming by 2100.

To close that gap global emissions must peak within the next decade and fall approximately 50% below 1990 levels by 2050 (a cut of approximately 60% below current emissions).

The sooner the nations of the world begin to close this gap the cheaper and easier it will be.

For more information, download the full press release and the spreadsheet with the numbers behind the analysis.

The Climate Interactive research team from Sustainability Institute, the MIT Sloan School of Management, and Ventana Systems have analyzed the greenhouse gas emissions reductions targets stated in the final Copenhagen Accord and compared these with the emissions reduction commitments made by individual nations. The analysis, based on the C-ROADS climate policy simulation, assumes that all national commitments offered prior to and during the Copenhagen meeting remain in force, are verifiable and will be fully implemented.

The Accord adopted in Copenhagen (accessed 19 December 2009) calls for “deep cuts in global emissions…so as to hold the increase in global temperature below 2 degrees Celsius” compared to preindustrial levels.  Simulations of the C-ROADS model show that doing so requires global greenhouse gas emissions to peak by 2020 and then fall 50% below 1990 levels by 2050 (a cut of approximately 60% below current emissions).

However, simulations of the C-ROADS model show a large gap between the targets in the final Copenhagen agreement and the commitments offered by individual nations.  Using the C-ROADS model, the researchers estimate that current confirmed proposals (that is, submissions to the UNFCCC or official government positions) would raise expected global mean temperature by 3.9 °C  (7.0 °F) by 2100.  Including conditional proposals, legislation under debate and unofficial government statements would lower expected warming to an increase of approximately 2.9°C (5.2°F) over preindustrial levels. Full details and assumptions are here.

Climate Interactive researcher and MIT Professor John Sterman comments “If you pour water into your bathtub faster that it drains out, the level of water in the tub will rise.  In exactly the same way, the world currently pours about twice as much CO₂ into the atmosphere each year than nature can remove, increasing the concentrations of greenhouse gases that drive continued warming, sea level rise, and other climate changes that pose grave risks to our economy and welfare (see the “Big Idea” graphic on this topic in the December 2009 edition of National Geographic magazine.

The longer we delay the emissions reductions required to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations, the more costly it will be to cut emissions, the worse warming will be and the more the people of the world, rich and poor, will suffer.  The longer we delay, the greater the risk that warming will trigger positive feedback loops in the climate system that can limit the ability of the land and oceans to remove CO₂ from the atmosphere, causing still faster accumulation of CO₂ in the atmosphere and still more warming, in a vicious cycle.”

“The good news is that there are many opportunities to cut emissions today, profitably, with technologies for efficiency, and for clean, renewable energy.  And the faster we do so, the cheaper it gets:  through R&D, scale economies and learning, every megawatt of solar and wind we build today lowers the costs of the next one, further boosting demand for clean energy and cutting emissions in a virtuous cycle.  The nations whose policies drive these positive feedbacks the fastest will create jobs and build the industries that will dominate the economy of the future.”

Notes For Editors:

The C-ROADS (Climate – Rapid Overview And Decision Support) climate policy simulator is a scientifically sound tool that enables users to rapidly evaluate the impact of national greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction policies on key climate impacts including per-capita emissions, atmospheric GHG concentrations, mean global temperature and sea level, through 2100.  C-ROADS has been carefully calibrated to the best available peer reviewed science, including the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC.  The scientific review panel that assessed the model concluded that C-ROADS “reproduces the response properties of state-of- the-art three dimensional climate models very well…. Given the model’s capabilities and its close alignment with a range of scenarios published in the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC we support its widespread use among a broad range of users and recommend that it be considered as an official United Nations tool.”  C-ROADS was developed by the Sustainability Institute, MIT Sloan School of Management, and Ventana Systems. Full documentation and details are available at http://climateinteractive.org.

• C-ROADS is based on simulation modeling originally conducted at MIT and has been developed by a partnership of MIT’s Sloan School of Management, Sustainability Institute and Ventana Systems.

• C-ROADS draws upon and is intended to complement the insights of other, more disaggregated models such as MAGICC, MINICAM, EPPA, AIM and MERGE.

• The development and use of C-ROADS has been supported by Active Philanthropy, Zennström Philanthropies, The Morgan Family Foundation, The Rockefeller Brothers Fund and others.

• Sustainability Institute is a non-profit organization based in Hartland, VT, USA. It was founded by Donella Meadows in 1997. Current projects at SI include simulation modeling of climate change and public health and the Donella Meadows Leadership Fellows Program.

For More Information:

Dr. Elizabeth Sawin

Sustainability Institute
+1-603-715-0116, Email: bethsawin [at] sustainer.org

Professor John Sterman

MIT Sloan School of Management

+1 339-223-0576, Email: jsterman [at] mit.edu

General Information on the Sustainability Institute:

Bas de Leeuw

Executive Director, Sustainability Institute

bas.deleeuw@sustainer.org

+1-802-436-1277 X100 (office)

For further information please visit:

http://climateinteractive.org or http://www.sustainer.org

Inquires at info@sustainer.org

Copenhagen — As of 12:30 am on 19 December, the latest draft text for the Copenhagen Accord has too few quantifiable targets for our team to adequately analyze it. We look forward to using C-ROADS to calculating the long term impacts of the Accord as soon as possible.

Note that, as we explain here, the Climate Scoreboard presents the aggregate impact of national proposals, not the Copenhagen Accord.

The Climate Scoreboard, created by the Climate Interactive team with the C-ROADS simulator, indicates long-term outcomes of national proposals. It does not yet reflect the content of a yet-to-be-finalized Copenhagen UNFCCC agreement.

Determining whether or not the “deal” in Copenhagen is a success is a difficult task.  We at Climate Interactive have noticed confusion, including mischaracterization of analysis of preexisting national commitments as an analysis of a proposed Copenhagen accord.  We offer the following as a framework for thinking about the outcome of COP15.

We feel it is important to distinguish the outcome of Copenhagen in two dimensions: National vs. International (UNFCCC) targets, and 2020 vs. 2050/2100 ambition.

National vs. International Commitments: Many countries have passed or pledged domestic actions to reduce emissions. These can be evaluated to see whether or not they are sufficient to achieve particular goals (e.g., www.climatescoreboard.org). An agreement in Copenhagen may include aspirational goals — goals that nations agree on but for which domestic actions and international enabling or enforcement measures might not be specified. If this is the case, then it is important to note the climate implications for the international targets, while also realizing more work needs to be done to realize them.

2020 vs. 2050/2100 Evaluation: Many reports indicate a target emissions level (in gigatons CO2eq) that is desirable for 2020, in order to provide a reasonable chance of achieving later goals. While 2020 emissions don’t strongly determine the future by themselves, they set the stage for what is possible with continued reductions in the future. Alternatively, pledges can be evaluated against long-term climate metrics, such as concentrations (ppm) and temperature change (e.g., 2 deg C) in 2100.

Within this framework, the Climate Scoreboard indicates long-term outcomes of national commitments. It does not yet reflect the content of a yet-to-be-finalized Copenhagen UNFCCC agreement.

Today, as the Heads of State gather here at the Copenhagen Conference, our calculations show that current confirmed proposals are not yet ambitious enough to limit temperature increase to 1.5-2°C (2.7-3.6°F) over pre-industrial temperatures. As shown above in the Climate Scoreboard, we estimate a temperature increase of 3.9°C (7.0°F) over pre-industrial if current proposals were implemented as compared to 4.8°C (8.7°F) temperature increase by 2100 without emissions reductions.

For details on calculations, assumptions, and the scientific methods behind the simulation, click here.

The Climate Scoreboard was created by the Climate Interactive program out of Sustainability Institute. The simulation behind it was built by SI, the Sloan School of Management at MIT and Ventana Systems.

The Scoreboard is based on the C-ROADS (Climate Rapid Overview and Decision Support) computer simulation, which is carefully calibrated to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report results. C-ROADS emerged from research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and allows users to input mitigation proposals for China, India, the US, the European Union, and other nations and regions. It then simulates these emissions’ impacts on greenhouse gas concentrations, temperature change, per-capita emissions, cumulative emissions, sea level rise and other indicators. More information on the simulator is available here.

In addition to the Scoreboard, C-ROADS analysis of current proposals is shared online in a variety of forms, including graphics, data files, and slide sets.

C-ROADS has been used in strategic planning sessions for decision makers from government, business and social organizations and in interactive role-playing policy exercises.

Launching the Scoreboard, Dr. Elizabeth Sawin of Sustainability Institute said:

“The Climate Scoreboard helps make sense of what is happening in the climate treaty process. It helps negotiators, political leaders non-governmental organizations, the media and citizens understand the state of the negotiations. All of us have a stake in these negotiations, and the reporting, which will be continuously updated during the Copenhagen conference, will help us track how close the negotiations are to achieving their goals.”

Contact for interviews:

Dr. Elizabeth Sawin, Climate Interactive Program, Sustainability Institute

bethsawin [at] sustainer.org – www.climateinteractive.org

Twitter: @climateinteract

+1-802-436-1277 X 103 (office)   +1-603-715-0116 (mobile)

The following is Bill McKibben’s article on the Copenhagen summit, which discusses the importance of numbers in the climate negotiations and Climate Interactive’s role in producing them. Find the latest numbers on the Climate Scoreboard.

Copenhagen: Only the numbers count – and they add up to hell on earth
Climate Interactive’s software speaks numbers, not spin – which is where the true understanding of the Copenhagen summit lies

guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 15 December 2009 11.17 GMT

The Bella centre is a swirl of chatter, the streets of Copenhagen are a swirl of protest. Depending on what hour you listen to the news bulletin, the UN climate negotiations have “come off the rails” or are “back on track” or have “stalled” or are “moving swiftly”. Which is why the only people who really understand what’s going on may be a small crew of folks from a group of computer jockeys called Climate Interactive. Their software speaks numbers, not spin – and in the end it’s the numbers that count.

First number to know: 350. It’s what scientists have been saying for two years is the maximum amount of carbon dioxide we can safely have in the atmosphere, measured in parts per million. Those scientists have been joined by an unprecedented outpouring from civil society: in late October, activists put on what CNN called “the most widespread day of political action in the planet’s history,” with 5,200 demonstrations in 181 countries, all rallying around that number. Three thousand vigils last weekend across the planet spelled out the number in candles. Thousands of churches rang their bells 350 times on Sunday, and yesterday the World Parliament of Religions, meeting in Melbourne and representing the “largest interreligious gathering on earth” sent an emergency 350 declaration here to Copenhagen.

The second number: 100. That’s (roughly) how many countries are backing a 350 target here at Copenhagen. That’s more than half the nations in attendance – unfortunately, they’re the small, poor ones. But it’s amazing to see them, in the face of enormous pressure, keeping the idea of real action alive. Yesterday Mohamed Nasheed, president of the Maldives, spoke to a roaring crowd of thousands: “We know what the laws of physics say: the most important number in the world is 350.”

The third number: 4%. That’s how much the US is offering to cut its emissions from their 1990 levels by 2020. Scientists tell us that the developed world would need to reduce by at least 40% to get us back on a 350 track, so the American offer is exactly an order or magnitude off. And they’re not alone. All the rich countries, not to mention China, are looking to do as little as possible and still escape here with some kind of agreement they can hide behind.

The fourth number – and the most important one. When the folks at Climate Interactive plug in every promise made at these talks (the American offer on the table, the Chinese promise to reduce “energy intensity”, the EU pledges, and so on) their software tells them almost instantly how much carbon they would eventually produce. When they hit the button last night, the program showed that by 2100 the world’s CO2 concentrations (currently 390) would be – drumroll please – 770. That is, we would live in hell, or at least a place with a similar temperature.

So that’s the scorecard. You may hear a lot of happy talk from world leaders over the next few days as they “reach a historic agreement”. But that’s how it all adds up.

• Bill McKibben is the coordinator of 350.org

Find the article online here.

We’re thrilled that, as one of his final set of blog posts as a staff writer at the NY Times, Andy Revkin chose to cover our Climate Scoreboard and the perspective of Climate Interactive team member Dr. John Sterman of MIT.  His post is below and here.

December 13, 2009, 11:54 am

Tally of CO2 Pledges Misses ‘Safe’ Zone

COPENHAGEN — Once in awhile, it’s useful in the midst of  conflicting treaty drafts (all those  bracketed targets) and confusing national emissions pledges (choose your  baseline year) to see how all this verbiage relates to what the atmosphere will experience in decades to come. When framing questions for people with climate claims, in fact, I often find it useful to assume the position of the atmosphere, asking how they would “convince” the sky that their proposals would have a meaningful impact on human-generated emissions.

These days, this has become a bit easier, as several groups have developed fast-response tools that can assess the climatic significance (or lack thereof) of a new emissions pledge. For the Copenhagen talks, three groups, under the mantle of  Climate Interactive, have joined forces and produced a single barometer of progress produced by creating an ensemble of their model results.

One partner in this effort is John Sterman at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who helped convey the cumulative nature of greenhouse gases with his illustrations of the  “bathtub effect” behind the building greenhouse effect.

Above you can see the latest analysis of the shortfall between the combined pledges of countries on carbon dioxide emissions, including a slight shift in Japan’s position reported over the weekend, and one of the thresholds for safety being pushed in the talks here by the poorest developing countries (1.5 degrees Celsius above the global temperature in the 1800s). It’s not a promising picture.

I asked Dr. Sterman to provide a bit more context on the analysis, and the model used to generate these results, which is called  C-ROADS. I have to issue a jargon and acronym alert, but I encourage you to read on. The “kicker” is worth the journey:

We use the C-ROADS model to examine the impact of all proposals for emissions reductions that have been made by individual nations that are now on the table at Copenhagen. We classify proposals into “confirmed” or “potential.” Confirmed proposals include official governmentt statements, adopted legislaton, and  UNFCCC submissions. Potential proposals include conditional proposals, legislation under consideration and unofficial government statements. Full documentation of our characterization and classification of the proposals is at http://climateinteractive.org/scoreboard/scoreboard-science-and-data/current-climate-proposals-1/current-climate-proposals.

The current (as of 12 December) analysis shows that confirmed proposals would cause a rise in expected mean global temperature of 3.9 °C (7.0 °F) above pre-industrial levels by 2100.

The 3.9°C (7.0 °F) warming by 2100 is an improvement of 0.9°C (1.6 °F) over the business as usual increase of 4.8 ° C (8.6 °F), but falls far short of the 2 °C (3.6 °F) target that has been widely adopted and that would reduce the risks of the most serious impacts of climate change. The uncertainty range around the estimate of 3.9 °C from current confirmed proposals means warming could be significantly higher, but there is essentially no chance of limiting warming to the 2 °C target.

This conclusion is reinforced by the  joint statement issues on 9 December by all the leading groups that analyze current proposals, including the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, UNEP, Ecofys, Climate Analytics, the European Climate Foundation and ClimateWorks.

Recent independent analyses of current mitigation proposals on the table in Copenhagen by Nicholas Stern, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), Ecofys, Climate Analytics, the Sustainability Institute (C-ROADS), the European Climate Foundation and ClimateWorks (Project Catalyst), all point to the same conclusion: the negotiations must deliver the high end of current proposals and stretch beyond them, if the world is to have a reasonable chance of containing warming to below 2°C above pre-industrial levels, or the 1.5°C goal of many developing nations.

Some in the media have written that emissions reductions proposed by 2020 are within a few GtCO2e/year* of the rate required to stay on a path that yields a 50/50 chance of limiting warming to no more than 2 °C. This is misleading. One could quibble about the significance of having current proposals being a few gigatons per year higher than the rate required for the 50/50 chance of 2 °C (a few gigatons here, a few gigatons there; pretty soon you are talking about real warming).

But arguing about whether the 2-degree path requires emissions in 2020 to be 45 or 40 gigatons CO2e/year misses the critical issue. The most important determinant of the level of warming by 2100 is not the rate of emissions in 2020 but the rate in 2050. If emissions do not fall significantly by 2050 (and beyond) then there is no chance of limiting warming to 2 °C. As you can see in this graph, showing results from the C-ROADS model (http://climateinteractive.wordpress.com/2009/12/09/2050-copenhagen-targets-really-matter-15-times-as-much-emissions-abatement-will-happen-post-2020/), the cumulative abatement of emissions needed by 2050 is 15 times larger than the cumulative abatement the low emissions path requires by 2020 (relative to business as usual). If emissions do not continue to fall after 2020 then warming is expected to be well above 2°C. Any agreement coming out of Copenhagen that does not commit the parties to continuing, substantial emissions reductions through 2050 cannot claim to have succeeded in putting the world on a path limiting expected warming to 2 degrees C.

Furthermore, there is a real risk of what we call “eroding goals” — of slipping what we strive for in the face of difficulty. Since when is a 50/50 chance of limiting warming to 2 °C by 2100 acceptable as a target? Sure, that’s better than doing nothing, but who thinks playing Russian roulette with half the chambers loaded is a good gamble? To limit the chance that warming will exceed 2 °C by 2100 to no more than, say, 5%, emissions would have to fall even farther and faster than the “Low Emissions” path in the graph above. That’s still like playing Russian roulette with 1 in 20 chambers loaded. Who among us would play that game? Who among us would play that game when the gun is pointed not at our heads, but at our childrens’?

[*GtCO2e is billions of tons of carbon dioxide or the equivalent amount of other greenhouse gases when measured in terms of their potential to warm things up.]

At the end of the first week of the Copenhagen climate summit, the Climate Interactive team gave a presentation at the US Center on the C-ROADS-CP model. The presentation included an explanation and demonstration of the model, a user’s testimony of the model by Trevor Houser from the US State Department, as well as an overview of C-Learn and the Climate Scoreboard.

Below is the video of the presentation.  You could skip over the first 5 minutes to get to the main talk.

Our calculation of anticipated 2100 global temperature, captured in the Climate Scoreboard, nudged slightly higher with the news of Japan making its mitigation proposal to the UNFCCC conditional on the actions of others.

Reuters reported on Friday that  Japanese Environment Minister Sakihito Ozawa announced that Japan’s previous proposals for emissions reductions were premised on “ambitious goals being agreed by all major emitters.” The Climate Scoreboard had previously included Japan’s proposal to reduce emissions to 25% below 1990 levels by 2020 and to 60% below 2005 by 2050. Minister Ozawa’s statement means that Japan’s pledge no longer fits the criteria we use to defined “confirmed” proposals so we have re-estimated the expected temperature increase in 2100 and updated the Climate Scoreboard. Our results indicate that if Japan did not act on it’s previous pledge we would expect an additional 0.1 °C of temperature increase by 2100. We’ll continue to include Japan’s proposal in our estimate of “potential proposals” which includes conditional proposals like this one.

The Climate Scoreboard, the widget that is embedded on more than 1,000 websites around the world, will thus now read 3.9°C (7.0°F), replacing the previous reading of 3.8°C (6.8°F). Given the uncertainty in calculations of global temperature, this change does not indicate a significant shift in the long term outlook for the climate. However, after one week in Copenhagen, there have been no improvements to proposals.

The Scoreboard is based on the C-ROADS (Climate Rapid Overview and Decision Support) computer simulation, which is carefully calibrated to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report results. C-ROADS emerged from research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and allows users to input mitigation proposals for China, India, the US, the European Union, and other nations and regions. It then simulates these emissions’ impacts on greenhouse gas concentrations, temperature change, per-capita emissions, cumulative emissions, sea level rise and other indicators. More information on the simulator is available here.

Writing from the Bella Center in Copenhagen, our Climate Interactive team is sharing analysis of Day 5 Draft Texts in COP15.

PDF of the full press release is here.

With less than a week to go, significant differences remain between the aggregate emissions reductions from current national proposals and the mitigation targets released yesterday in a draft text at the UNFCCC climate talks in Copenhagen. This draft text from the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-Term Cooperative Action (AWG-LCA) includes greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets that could limit global temperature increase by 2100 to 2.0°C (3.6°F) or less, relative to pre-industrial temperatures. However, current proposals from individual countries for their own actions would lead to temperature increase of approximately 3.8°C (6.8°F) in the same period.

Achieving the potential declared in the draft texts will require sufficient commitment to financing, technology transfer, monitoring, verification, and accountability to allow nations to commit to and achieve higher reduction targets than they have currently put on the table. This analysis does not seek to analyze the political viability of the draft text or make any judgment as to the sufficiency of any elements of the draft other than the emissions reduction targets specified.

The draft text has been analyzed by researchers from the US-based Climate Interactive group, consisting of Sustainability Institute, the Sloan School of Management at MIT, and Ventana Systems. In their analysis, the researchers performed quick-turnaround analyses with the C-ROADS model.

The draft text contains bracketed text, where final target values have not yet been agreed upon. The researchers therefore analyzed three scenarios based on the reduction targets suggested within the text. In one scenario they combined the smallest reduction targets, in a second scenario the combined the largest reduction targets, and a third scenario examined the impact of the mid-range targets.

All three of the scenarios derived from the AWG-LCA text result in temperature increase in 2100 in the range of 2.0°C (3.6°F) or lower.

The gap between the text scenarios and those of the national governments was identified following an analysis of the collective impact of the current proposals nations have made for their own emissions reductions. The researchers estimate that current confirmed proposals (that is submissions to the UNFCCC or official government positions) would result in an average increase in global mean temperature of 3.8°C  (6.8°F) by 2100, and that potential proposals, including conditional proposals, legislation under debate and unofficial government statements, would result in approximately a 2.9°C (5.2°F) temperature increase.

Dr. Elizabeth Sawin of Sustainability Institute in Hartland, Vermont, USA, who co-led the analysis said: “It is encouraging that these draft texts propose targets for emissions reductions that could limit temperature increase to 2°C (3.6°F), but the emissions reductions proposed by individual countries will need to be significantly larger if the world is to achieve this potential.”

Analysis and Assumptions

Notes:

All scenarios begin in 2010

Notes For Editors:

The C-ROADS (Climate – Rapid Overview And Decision Support) climate policy simulator is a scientifically sound tool that enables users to rapidly evaluate the impact of national greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction policies on key climate impacts including per-capita emissions, atmospheric GHG concentrations, mean global temperature and sea level, through 2100.  C-ROADS has been carefully calibrated to the best available peer reviewed science, including the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC.  The scientific review panel that assessed the model concluded that C-ROADS “reproduces the response properties of state-of- the-art three dimensional climate models very well…. Given the model’s capabilities and its close alignment with a range of scenarios published in the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC we support its widespread use among a broad range of users and recommend that it be considered as an official United Nations tool.”  C-ROADS was developed by the Sustainability Institute, MIT Sloan School of Management, and Ventana Systems. Full documentation and details are available at http://climateinteractive.org.

• C-ROADS is based on simulation modeling originally conducted at MIT and has been developed by a partnership of MIT’s Sloan School of Management, Sustainability Institute and Ventana Systems.

• C-ROADS draws upon and is intended to complement the insights of other, more disaggregated models such as MAGICC, MINICAM, EPPA, AIM and MERGE.

• The development and use of C-ROADS has been supported by Active Philanthropy, Zennström Philanthropies, The Morgan Family Foundation, The Rockefeller Brothers Fund and others.

• Sustainability Institute is a non-profit organization based in Hartland, VT, USA. It was founded by Donella Meadows in 1997. Current projects at SI include simulation modeling of climate change and public health and the Donella Meadows Leadership Fellows Program.

For More Information:

Contacts in Copenhagen through December 19th

Dr. Elizabeth Sawin

Sustainability Institute
+1-603-715-0116

Email: bethsawin@sustainer.org

Or

Andrew Jones

Sustainability Institute
+1-828-231-4576

Email: apjones@sustainer.org

Sources through Sawin or Jones on specific aspects and implications of the analysis

• Simulation Science or Business: Dr. John Sterman, MIT
• Climate Science and International Policy: Dr. Bob Corell, Washington D.C.

Contact in the United States

Bas de Leeuw

Sustainability Institute Executive Director

bas.deleeuw@sustainer.org

+1-802-436-1277 X100 (office)

For further information please visit:

http://climateinteractive.org or http://www.sustainer.org

Inquires at info@sustainer.org

The most recent issue of the journal “Nature” featured Beth Sawin in an article entitled “Copenhagen: the scientists’ view”. The article, put out in advance of Copenhagen, looks at how scientists from around the world plan to take part in the climate change conference.

Subscribers can check out the full article by Jeff Tollefson here.