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http://www.theage.com.au/world/climate-to-warm-at-double-rate-20100706-zyyx.html

THE world is heading for an average temperature rise of nearly 4 degrees, according to a global analysis of national pledges. Such a rise would bring a high risk of major extinctions, threats to food supplies and the near-total collapse of the huge Greenland ice sheet.

More than 100 heads of state agreed in Copenhagen last December to limit the rise in global temperatures to 1.5 to 2 degrees above the long-term average before the industrial revolution, which started a huge global rise in greenhouse gases.
But after a concerted international effort to monitor the emission reduction targets of more than 60 countries, including all the major economies, the Climate Interactive Scoreboard now calculates that the world is on course for a rise of nearly double the stated goal by 2100.
Another study, by Climate Analytics, at the Potsdam Institute in Germany, suggests there is ''virtually no chance'' world governments will keep the temperature rise below 2 degrees, and it is likely to be 3.5 degrees by the end of the century.
In both analyses the current commitments suggest a much better outcome than the estimated business-as-usual temperature rise of 4.8 degrees, but it is well above the 2 degrees maximum the UN hoped would be agreed this December in Cancun, Mexico.
In its last assessment of the problem, in 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) forecast that a rise of more than 2 degrees would lead to potential increases in food production, but an increasingly high risk of extinction for 20-30 per cent of species, more severe droughts and floods, and a unstoppable ''widespread to near total'' loss of the Greenland ice sheet over very long time periods.
At 4 degrees, it predicted global food production was ''very likely'' to decrease, ''major extinctions around the globe'', and near-total loss of Greenland's ice. The severity of floods, erosion, heat waves, droughts and health problems such as malnutrition and diarrhoeal diseases would also increase.
''We've made progress but we're clearly not headed where we need to be,'' said Andrew Jones, co-director of Climate Interactive, which is backed by universities including MIT. ''No one is talking about changing any of the 2020 proposals.''
The first major independent review of criticisms of the global assessment of climate change led by the UN declared it had found ''no errors that would undermine the main conclusions'' of the IPCC that climate change will have serious consequences. However, the Dutch panel of experts says it found 12 errors, and suggests the summary version of the report painted an over-dramatic picture.