A recent report from Greenpeace warns that “the world is quickly reaching a Point of No Return for preventing the worst impacts of climate change. Continuing on the current course will make it difficult, if not impossible, to prevent the widespread and catastrophic impacts of climate change. The costs will be substantial: billions spent to deal with the destruction of extreme weather events, untold human suffering, and the deaths of tens of millions from the impacts by as soon as 2030 (1).
With total disregard for this unfolding global disaster, the fossil fuel industry is planning 14 massive coal, oil and gas projects that would produce as much new carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in 2020 as the entire US (2), and delay action on climate change for more than a decade”.
Ecofys shows there is still a 75% chance of keeping the increase in the average global temperature below 2°C if actions are taken now to reduce emissions (3). This would not be easy, but it is possible. One of the key actions is to avoid the massive new emissions from the 14 projects in this report.
Download the full report [pdf]: “Point of No Return. The massive climate threats we must avoid”. Greenpeace International report January 2013, written by Ria Voorhar & Lauri Myllyvirta.
(1) DARA and the Climate Vulnerable Forum (2012). Climate Vulnerability Monitor: A Guide to the Cold Calculus of a Hot Planet. 2nd Edition, DARA, Madrid, Spain, p. 24.
 (2) “The additional emissions from the new dirty energy projects in 2020 are estimated at 6.3Gt CO2/year, while US emissions from fossil fuel burning stood at 5.4Gt CO2 in 2010.”
(3) Climate Action Tracker Update, November 2012. Ecofys Consultancy.