Climate target is not radical enough - according  to the head of NASA Goddard Institute.  The Guardian, Monday April 7th 2008

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

James Hansen says the EU target of 550 parts per million of C02 - the most stringent in the world - should be slashed to 350ppm.

One of the world's leading climate scientists warns today that the EU and its international partners must urgently rethink targets for cutting carbon dioxide in the atmosphere because of fears they have grossly underestimated the scale of the problem.

In a startling reappraisal of the threat, James Hansen, head of the Nasa Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, calls for a sharp reduction in C02 limits.

Hansen says the EU target of 550 parts per million of C02 - the most stringent in the world - should be slashed to 350ppm. He argues the cut is needed if "humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilisation developed". A final version of the paper Hansen co-authored with eight other climate scientists, is posted today on the arXiv.org website.

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Dr James Hansen. Photograph:AP Photos/The Daily Iowan/Melanie Patterson