Another Report Says We Are Steering the Planet Into a Dangerously Hot Future

Ahead of climate talks in Doha, Qatar next week, the UN Environmental Programme has released the third Emissions Gap Report. Climate Interactive Co-Director Beth Sawin is once again one of the report’s authors. Like the World Bank report released last week, this report reminds us that reducing our emissions is paramount.

Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, summarized the Emissions Gap report by saying, “This report is a reminder that time is running out, but that the technical means and the policy tools to allow the world to stay below a maximum 2 degrees Celsius are still available to governments and societies”. The reminder that the gap between a 2 degree future and where we are now is still widening, and that countries are still putting forward targets that are far short of what is needed is sobering.

The Emissions Gap report goes beyond the stark assessments of where we are relative to where we need to be, by identifying sectors where dramatic reduction can be made to bridge the gap.

Beth Sawin Fills the Sails of Corporate Action to Close the Climate Chasm

Closing the emissions gap requires all hands on deck and Climate Interactive Co-Director Beth Sawin is heading to Miami, Florida, the latest stopover of the Volvo Ocean Race, to speak to a group of business leaders who are taking up the charge. While actual deckhands race on sailboats just offshore, race sponsor Volvo will also host the 2012 Corporate Climate Summit in partnership with the World Wildlife Fund.

Beth is speaking at the summit about the emissions gap, the space between where current climate commitments stand and where they need to be to keep climate change within 2 degrees Celsius. Beth, an author on the UNEP Bridging the Emissions Gap report, will highlight the challenge this gap presents, but also the opportunities that the corporate sector has to put us on our way to closing it. Using fresh insights emerging from our latest energy modeling, Beth will explain that there are several dynamics, not the least of which is the actual emission reductions, that present opportunities for business to accommodate the limits of the atmosphere and reduce the impacts of climate change.

PAUL TODD/Volvo Ocean Race