The June 2007 report examines the efforts that have been made to tackle climate change at global level and gives an overview of the current situation.
He starts with the latest scientific findings of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - according to which, if nothing is done, the global temperature will rise by 1°C and 30-40% of species will be threatened with extinction by 2020.
He lists the diplomatic efforts to date, including:
- The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change that led to the Kyoto Protocol;
- The Asia-Pacific Partnership for Clean Development and Climate;
- The Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum;
- The "Methane to Markets" programme;
- The International Partnership for the Hydrogen Economy.
However, the diplomatic processes to co-ordinate the international response to climate change are slow and ineffective, states the author.
Moreover, under the Kyoto Protocol, industrialised countries agreed to limit carbon emissions until 2012. A mandate for the post-2012 negotiations will "hopefully" be adopted at the Conference of the Parties in Bali by the end of 2007, the author states.
He thus outlines three potential scenarios for the post-Kyoto period:
- In the first scenario - "business-as-usual" - nothing is done and the post-2012 negotiations fail. The world is "locked into a fossil-fuel path", greenhouse gases increase and the average global temperature increases significantly.
- In the second scenario - "structurally conservative" - governments and companies do act but without changing current economic and ecological structures. A slide into the first scenario is thus possible.
- In the third scenario - "eco-fair" - governments successfully conclude the post-2012 negotiations and industrialised countries support mitigation measures in emerging countries. Large-scale environmental disruption occurs, but a global catastrophe might have been averted.
The larger gap to be bridged is not the disagreements between the EU and the US, but those between the industrial societies of the north and fast-growing economies of the south, concludes the author.
He therefore recommends the implementation of three "building blocks" that might allow the deadlock in the post-2012 negotiations to be overcome:
- Industrialised countries must first agree on substantial reductions for the post-2012 phase;
- Industrialised countries must offer substantial support for mitigation in emerging countries;
- Industrialised countries must support the less-developed countries in adapting to climate change
