e expected even a decade ago, largely owing to the breakneck industrialisation of China, which doubled its CO2 output over the decade from 3bn to 6 bn tonnes, and in doing so overtook the US as the world's biggest polluter. Currently global carbon emissions are rising by nearly three per cent annually, making a four per cent annual decline a tall order indeed, and one that the present Copenhagen commitments would not remotely be able to facilitate.
There has to be a move to a radical new level of emissions cuts, Professor Anderson says, if dangerous climate change is to be avoided.
He writes: "If Copenhagen is to have any chance of kick-starting a global movement to stay below the 2 degrees C characterisation of dangerous climate change, it must inspire and instigate a rapid shift away from the current political and economic consensus."
The first challenge, he says, is to get political buy-in to what the science is saying in relation to, at least, a 50:50 chance of not exceeding 2 degrees C.
"In brief, wealthy (OECD) nations need to peak emissions by around 2012, achieve at least a 60 per cent reduction in emissions from energy by 2020, and fully decarbonise their energy systems by 2030 at the latest.
"Alongside this, the 'industrialising' nations (non-OECD) need to peak their collective emissions by around 2025 and fully decarbonise their energy systems by 2050."
He notes: "This scale of reductions is presently far removed from that which the negotiators in Copenhagen are intending to consider."
He concludes: "The second challenge for Copenhagen, therefore, is to make a clear and explicit decision to do all that is necessary to put global emissions on a 2 degrees C pathway, even if this requires a temporary cessation in economic growth amongst the wealthy OECD nations."