A Grim Status Report

David Kurtz November 20, 2012, 10:47 AM


The World Bank has released a new report (.pdf) on climate change that is ostensibly focused on the dire consequences of a rise in average global temperatures by 4 degrees Celsius. That in itself is significant insofar as the Copenhagen Accord of 2009 agreed that it was crucial to cap the worldwide temperature increase at 2 degrees Celsius.

To be clear, no one then — and certainly no one in the three years since — thought we would be able to avoid blowing through the Copenhagen ceiling (although the World Bank report still holds out such hope). That has become seen as inevitable since no substantial or meaningful agreement has been reached on reducing carbon emissions. If you’re interested, Bill McKibben wrote about these numbers in Rolling Stone over the summer.