World needs to axe greenhouse gases by 80%

OSLO (Reuters) – The world will have to axe greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050, more deeply than planned, to have an even chance of curbing global warming in line with
European Union goals, researchers said on Thursday.

Even tough long-term curbs foreseen by the EU or California fall short of reductions needed to avert a 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) temperature rise over pre-industrial times, seen by the EU as a threshold for “dangerous change,” they said.


“If we are to have a 50 percent chance of meeting a 2 Celsius target we would have to cut global emissions by 80 percent by 2050,” Nathan Rive of the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research in Oslo told Reuters.

“Any delay in implementing emissions reductions will make a 2 degree target practically unreachable,” he and colleague Steffen Kallbekken wrote of findings to be published in the journal Climatic Change.

Reuters