Durban, South Africa—Yesterday, before an audience of more than
100 environmental ministers gathered at the opening “high level
segment” plenary of the Durban Climate Change Conference, U.N.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon flatly declared, “We are nearing
the ‘point of no return,’ and we must pull back from the abyss."
The “abyss” against which the Secretary-General warned is a
future average global temperature increase higher than 2 degrees
Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit). What's so terrible about
exceeding those two degrees, and where did that figure come
from? The 2°C baseline is based on climate models that project
increases in greenhouse gases produced chiefly by burning fossil
fuels will soon commit humanity to this much extra warming. In
political terms, the 2°C figure derives from the 2010 Cancun
Agreements in which member countries to the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change officially recognized
“that deep cuts in global greenhouse gas emissions are required
according to science.” Ho