On the eve of the Climate Change meeting in Copenhagen, developing countries are at odds with the developed world on proposed climate change targets and would like them to do much more. There is disagreement on greenhouse gas emissions targets, the deadline for peak world emissions (2010) and limits on global warming.
“We cannot agree to the 50/50 ( halving emissions by 2050) because it implies that… the remaining (cuts) must be done by developing countries,” South Africa’s chief climate negotiator Alf Wills.
The carbon reduction offers are far below those recommended by The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It says that developed countries need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 25-40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, and 80-95 percent below 1990 levels by 2050, in order to provide a “reasonable chance” of averting warming beyond two degrees Celcius above pre-industrial temperature that would have significant risks of severe and irreversible impacts on human and ecological systems.