UNEP to publish major climate change reports in lead up to Durban

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has announced that it is to publish two reports in the lead up to the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP17) in Durban later this month.

The first report entitled Can the world’s emissions gap be bridged by 2020?, is a follow up to the 2010 UNEP study that became a benchmark for the international climate negotiations in Cancun, Mexico. To compile the report UNEP convened 55 scientists and experts from 28 scientific groups across 15 countries to review and summarise the latest climate mitigating studies to keep the global temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius. The report then asks how this gap can be bridged. “The result is a rich body of information on how to plausibly bridge the emissions gap in 2020 and beyond,” state UNEP.

The second report, to be published two days later, will outline 16 measures that could be taken to limit the impact of global warming, avoid millions of premature deaths and reduce global crop yield losses by tackling black carbon, methane and ground-level ozone, substances known as short-term climate forcers. The report demonstrates that half of these measures can deliver net cost savings over their lifetime, for example, from reduced fuel consumption or the use of recovered gas. Other measures to cut short-lived climate forcers would incur higher costs over a short-term basis, but can achieve major savings in other areas, such as the health improvements and reduced damage to ecosystems and crops associated with cleaner air.

The reports will be launched at the Royal Society in London on November 23rd and 25th respectively.