On December 9, 2009, The Climate Institute launched its Climate Scoreboard to serve as an online tool that allows the public to track how countries’ current proposals for greenhouse gas emissions reductions would affect future global warming, should they be implemented.
The Institute launched the Scoreboard in conjunction with the negotiations at Copenhagen so that interested parties could watch the progress in international commitments to reduce emissions, but it continues to report on a daily basis since Copenhagen.
According to the Institute, its Scoreboard automatically reports* whether proposals “commit countries to enough greenhouse gas emissions reductions to achieve widely expressed goals, such as limiting future warming to 1.5 to 2.0°C (2.7 to 3.6°F) above pre-industrial temperatures.”
The Scoreboard currently demonstrates that proposals to date would reduce global warming in 2100 below temperatures of a “business as usual” scenario (in which we continue to emit as much as we do today), but these proposals are “not yet ambitious enough to limit temperature increase to 2°C (3.6°F) over pre-industrial temperatures.”
In other words,–to protect our coastal cities, public health, access to freshwater, food security, species survival and public security–we still have a long way to go.
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