During the Pliocene between three and five million years ago, CO2 levels reached around 415 parts per million (ppm). At this time, global average temperatures were around 3-4 C higher, and sea levels between 16 and 131 feet higher than today.
An earlier UNFCC report summarising the conclusions of 70 scientific experts noted that avoiding dangerous climate change requires "a fundamental transformation of the energy system and global GHG emission levels towards zero by 2100." The report emphasised:
"Limiting global warming to below 2C necessitates a radical transition (deep decarbonisation now and going forward), not merely a fine tuning of current trends."
Yet deep carbonisation is not even being mentioned in Paris.
"One of the key things" that is not being discussed at the negotiations at all is to put a limit to fossil fuel extractions," said Pablo Solon, former chief climate negotiator for the Bolivian government, and a former ambassador the UN. "There is not one single leader, one single country that has put text to be negotiated that says you have to leave 80 percent of fossil fuels under the ground. And if you don't leave fossil fuels under the ground, how are you going to limit greenhouse gas emissions that come mainly from fossil fuel extraction?"
The accord will also not contain legally binding provisions where it really counts: enforcing commitments to promised emissions reductions. Countries will be legally bound to provide their targets. They just won't be legally bound to meet their target. This is so that as many countries as possible can be encouraged to sign up to what can be described as a "legally binding" agreement -- however toothless it might be in practice.
Militarising the planetMeanwhile, as French authorities have exploited the draconian enhancement of anti-terror powers to ban the main climate rally, crackdown on smaller climate protests, and arrest and detain dozens of climate activists, Europe is rallying to participate in US-led coalition air strikes in Syria.
After 13/11, France accelerated its air strikes on Islamic State (ISIS) targets in Syria, swiftly followed by Britain on Wednesday, and now Germany, which plans to send six Tornado jets and 1,200 troops to support coalition forces.
There is a cutting irony here. It's now increasingly recognised that before the "Arab Spring", a cycle of droughts induced by climate change drove migrations of a million predominantly Sunni farmers in Syria into Alawite-dominated coastal cities.
The sudden influx strained sectarian tensions, and heightened pressure on a regime already suffering from flagging revenues due to declining oil exports and rocketing food prices. The latter were exacerbated as the years leading up to 2011 saw successive crop failures across major food basket regions, triggered by extreme weather events.
In May, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published a scientific study concluded that climate change amplified Syria's drought to record levels, catalysing civil unrest into a full-blown uprising.
In 2011, the West's initial response was to hope that President Bashar al-Assad would be able to brutalise the uprisings into non-existence.
"My judgment is that Syria will move; Syria will change, as it embraces a legitimate relationship with the United States and the West and economic opportunity that comes with it and the participation that comes with it," announced John Kerry, who had met Assad several times the preceding year.
Hillary Clinton described him as a "reformer", even as his security forces repressed peaceful protests, encouraging him to escalate to shooting people in the streets.
Scoping Syrian fossil fuelsWhich "economic opportunity" was Kerry talking about?
It is not widely known that US, British, French and Israeli oil companies have had a range of overlapping interests in exploiting Syria's unconventional oil and gas resources, which are believed to be considerable.
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