258 A strategyfor action to slowand stabiliseclimate changeRussia
Japan
OECD Europe
Other EIT
Middle EastChinaLatin
AmericaOther Asia
Africa India0 1000 2000 3000 4000 50000123456
USACanada, Australia, New ZealandEmissions (tonnes of carbon per captita)
6000
Population (million)
Figure 10.2Carbon dioxide emissions in 2000 from different countries or
groups of countries expressed per capita and population.on page 243), which states that the levels and the timescales for their
achievement should be such that dangerous interference with the climate
system must be prevented, that ecosystems should be able to adapt nat-
urally, that food production must not be threatened and that economic
development can proceed in a sustainable manner. We do not yet know
enough to pick precisely the levels or the timescales under the criteria
the Climate Convention is prescribing, but perhaps already some limits
can be set.
Firstly, considering the most important greenhouse gas, carbon diox-
ide, as we have already noted its long life in the atmosphere provides
severe constraints on the future emission profiles that lead to stabilisation
at any level. It will be clear, for instance, from Figure 10.1 that stabil-
isation below about 400 ppm would require an almost immediate drastic
reduction in emissions. Such reduction could only be achieved at a large
cost and with some curtailment of energy availability and would almost
certainly breach the criterion which requires ‘that economic development
can proceed in a sustainable manner’.
What about the upper end of the choice of level? Here we refer
to the likely impacts of climate change under a situation in which the
atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide has doubled from its pre-
industrial value of 280 ppm to about 560 ppm. Many of the impacts
described in Chapter 7 with their associated costs apply to this situation.
We also noted there that in estimating these costs there were components