Global climate catastrophe is inevitable—if its almost universal denial continues.

The current UN Copenhagen Climate Conference negotiations are not being based on the known facts of global climate science. The very worst risks and worst research findings are excluded from the negotiations. The negotiations are based on a number of assumptions that are not true. The negotiations are catastrophic.

The current UN Copenhagen Climate Conference negotiations practically deny the clear intention and obligations on nations under the 1992 UN Framework Climate Change Convention.

World leaders and the scientific organizations that advise them do not acknowledge the extent of today's risks. The latest research evidence on climate catastrophe is not included in current UN negotiations. The negotiations assume, that greenhouse gas levels are not in the dangerous climate interference zone and that the world is not facing catastrophic danger change.

There is no national or international agreement or policy for zero carbon emissions (or virtual zero) to prevent catastrophic climate change. The above minimum essentials for our survival are not even under discussion—not by any UN climate convention party or organization.

• There is no formal acknowledgement on what levels of atmospheric greenhouse gases are dangerous or catastrophic.
• Climate change scientists say these are value judgements that cannot be defined.
• All parties are accepting a target of 2° C even though this is disastrous, based on scientific findings, and is catastrophic because of accelerating changes to the Arctic, happening right now at a global warming of 0.78° C.
• No parties are acknowledging that only zero CO₂ emissions can stop global warming (although this has been established by the greenhouse gas sciences).
• The policy of all parties is to delay the elimination of most greenhouse gas emissions until 2050.
• There is no large global investment program to build a worldwide renewable energy economy.
• There is no international agreement to add the costs of fossil fuel pollution to fossil energy sales.
• The is no international policy to ban fossil fuel subsidies (currently at $300 billion worldwide).
• The current UN climate convention negotiations are based solely on the IPCC 2007 assessment of the science (up to January 2006), which omits all the very worst scientific reports of impending catastrophe.
• Real world global greenhouse gas emissions are above the worst-case IPCC scenario and still accelerating.
• The IPCC 2007 assessment omits the very greatest dangers, which are Arctic carbon feedbacks. These feedbacks have already started.
• The IPCC assessment does not include the effects of greenhouse gas emissions on the oceans, even though the climate is controlled by the oceans. It is impossible to assess global climate change without including the oceans. They must be included, as a priority issue.
• The oceans have taken up over 80% of the heat from global greenhouse emissions and over 30% of the carbon dioxide. These are severely damaging the oceans. The CO₂ has acidified the oceans to such an extent the acidity exceeds anything in the past twenty million years, according to the ocean scientists. This spells certain catastrophe, and it is being ignored in the UN Copenhagen Climate Conference negotiations.

Based on recent findings, the planet is on track for a 2.0° C global warming before 2050. That does not include positive feedback loops from the Arctic meltdown, like the thawing of the permafrost (see Runaway Heating for more details about the catastrophic amounts of atmospheric carbon that are being released and will be released).

There is only one published paper that studied what the maximum global warming limit is that will allow humanity to continue to survive (survive, not thrive!). The paper was presented at the March 2009 Copenhagen climate congress. The conclusion was a global average temperature of 7° C. At this level, vast regions of the planet would be uninhabitable. Human populations would only be able to survive in what is left.

But this not take into account the fact that global warmng will last at least one thousand years (that is, to approximately the year 3,000). In this case, the survival of humanity will need a lower limit, in the 5.0° C range, as other scientists have stated but not published.

There is no published opinion on what the chances of survival for all species of life on Earth would be at 7° C of warming for hundreds and thousands of years. It's obvious it would be hopeless because cumulative damages would render the entire planet uninhabitable.

There is also no published opinion on what life would be like with agriculture failing in all regions. No agriculture means no civilization. Humans can't eat oil, although we do rely on natural gas for making agricultural fertilizer. We are burning natural gas as fast as we can, and it burns to carbon dioxide.

So what would it be like, trying to survive like animals as our distant ancestors did? Not a chance!

What is our current target, based on our business-as-usual fossil-fuel-based economy?

5.5° C to 7.1° C

In other words, unsurvivable levels of global warming!

The Hadley Climate Centre in the United Kingdom estimates that we will see a 132% increase in atmospheric carbon emissions by 2050, and a 5.5° to 7.1° C temperature rise by 2100. As noted earlier, this study does not take into account the methane and carbon dioxide that will be released due to thawing of the permafrost and melting of the Arctic Ocean's surface ice.

The basic effects of global warming and climate change on agriculture are simple. Increased energy trapped in the biosphere increases storms and floods. It energizes the planet's water cycle, concentrating heavier rains in the already wettest regions. The dry regions will become drier. Heat waves will be more frequent.

Normal climate variability will increase, making the normal global and regional seasons less and less predictable. The only benefit to crops is CO₂ fertilization (more carbon to make energy with). But this effect will only occur at lower levels of global warming.

So global warming and climate change are predictably bad for agriculture (as any old-time farmer could figure out) and it will make the planet unsuitable for agriculture at temperatures currently being accepted as inevitable. There are in fact no regions that are not vulnerable. Even in Canada, Agriculture Canada says that in general global climate change impacts will be adverse, and that farmers will have to adapt.

Adaptation is being talked about more and more. But adaptation to global climate change, though it must be tried as best as possible, is in the long term futile. Adaptation, especially in agriculture, assumes that adverse changes will be temporary. They will not. The adverse impacts will become more frequent, prolonged and severe. Research has shown that in the best of possible climate change situations this century, adaptation of agriculture will only delay the inevitable and only by a decade at the most.

The suggestion (made to African nations) that Africa can adapt to global climate change is absurd and cruel.

The actual impacts to agriculture are going to be more severe and happen much sooner than the scientists have predicted.

As with all other sectors affected by climate change, the risks to agriculture are assessed by models. And as with all other risks, the models cannot account for all factors. Nowhere is the data so lacking as it is for agriculture. Here are the omitted factors...

• Climate variation.
• Extreme weather events.
• Increase in the number of weeds, and an increase in the number of changed weeds.
• Increase in the number of pests, and an increase in the number of changed pests.
• Resistance to current pesticides.
• Changes to soil fertility.
• Damage to plants from increased ground-level ozone.
• Additive/synergistic combination impacts.

The IPCC projects that, even without the above factors, agriculture in every region of the planet will be vulnerable to global warming above 2.5° C over the 1900 level, and the most vulnerable regions will be damaged at temperature rises above just 1° C.

Globally, agricultural production will go into decline by 2050. It is an obvious fact that agriculture has not been considered in the so called 2° C danger limit. For many reasons, the 2° C target is globally suicidal and agriculture is a big one.

Since current projections put us at a rise of at least 5.5° C, the entire planet faces a food supply catastrophe.

This does not take into account the millions of hectares of productive land that will be lost, or ruined due to salt, as our oceans rise with the melting of Antarctic and Greenland icesheets.

If we are to ensure viable supplies of food, we must halt all human-caused atmospheric carbon increases (especially carbon dioxide and methane), and begin to have negative emissions (that is, we take out more than we put into the atmosphere).

But no party or international organization is proposing either. They are not even being discussed as policy. They are not even being planned as emergency measures.

What are the climate change scientists saying about this extreme and extraordinary abuse of science, that has humanity and life on Earth headed for catastrophe?

There have been a few papers and reports published of the shortcomings of the IPCC assessment. However, the scientific community is sticking with the IPCC assessment even though it has no scientific risk assessment of the catastrophic dangers facing the entire world.

The most recent consensus report of global climate change scientists is the synthesis report of the March 2009 Copenhagen Science Congress. The purpose of the Congress was to update the global climate change science of the IPCC 2007 assessment.

This it did, proving for certain that we are headed for catastrophic global climate change and that the chances of avoiding catastrophe are rapidly disappearing. The Congress did say that "inaction is inexcusable."

However even so the Congress failed to acknowledge that the world is beyond dangerous climate interference, that we face a real and rapidly increasing of catastrophe and made no call for a global emergency response.

The Congress did not challenge the catastrophic 2° C target saying merely that "Temperature rises above 2° C will be difficult for contemporary societies to cope with, and are likely to cause major societal and environmental disruptions through the rest of the century and beyond."

This statement is a purely political statement. It is scientific nonsense and a deadly deception of the truth.

The Congress did say that only zero carbon emissions can stop global warming and prevent catastrophe. It did not call for target of zero or virtual zero carbon emissions. It did not say that we had to develop the capacity to extract carbon from the air.

To top it all, the Congress made a public statement that the Congress would have no influence on the Copenhagen Climate Conference, and supported the sole reliance on the IPCC 2007 assessment.

In other words the Congress confirmed the policy of climate change scientists to avoid saying what the greatest climate dangers are that we face and to avoid saying the very most essential measures that we must take for our survival.

We must begin now, in spite of what the scientists are telling us and our political leaders.

Click on any of the green buttons on the left to learn about the Zero Carbon economy, and how it will be good not just for the planet and agriculture, but for our economies as well.