Buddhist Climate Project
350 TARGET:
Dalai Lama’s Endorsement;
background, letter, new developments
Economics of 350
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Climate Change, Biggest Global Health Threat of the 21st Century
The Dalai Lama’s Endorsement
of the 350ppm CO2 Target
Scientific background, the letter, developments
In closing remarks to international climate talks in Poland (December 2008) that drew the longest applause of the conference, Al Gore stated that former targets for fighting global warming were obsolete and 350 parts per million (ppm) of atmospheric carbon dioxide was the new gold standard for climate stability. This target could only be ultimately achieved by passing through higher peak atmospheric concentrations as high as 440ppm. A 350 target accepts that we are challenged not only to reduce carbon gas emissions, but to actively remove huge quantities of fossil carbon already present in the atmosphere.
Nonetheless the best scientific evidence suggests 350ppm represents the upper limit of a safe-climate zone (300–350 ppm) for human civilization. It is the only target so far proposed consistent with the avoidance of runaway global warming. The existential challenge we face is thereby expressed as a simple target figure, first defined by NASA’s James Hansen and colleagues in a key 2008 scientific paper, “Target Atmospheric CO2–Where Should Humanity Aim?” which states:
If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm, but likely less than that… An initial 350 ppm CO2 target may be achievable by phasing out coal use except where CO2 is captured, and adopting agricultural and forestry practices that sequester carbon. If the present overshoot of this target CO2 is not brief, there is a possibility of seeding irreversible catastrophic effects.
At many sites around the world, such as Mauna Loa in Hawaii, scientists have measured man-made increases in the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, the main driver of global warming. Atmospheric carbon dioxide fluctuates annually, because more is “drawn down” during summer by large Northern Hemisphere forests. The annual cycle, shown in the inset figure, appears as “saw-teeth” behind the yearly average rise.
The pre-industrial atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide was 280 ppm. The current level is 390 ppm—the highest for 650,000 years, long before the modern human species appeared. Where should humanity aim? The safe-climate target for atmospheric carbon dioxide is 350 ppm, the level that avoids the possibility of runaway warming and maintains the planet we know.
We are honored to present here the Dalai Lama’s official letter of endorsement of the 350 ppm target. Among the growing list of other international figures supporting this target are Nobel Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Indian environmental leader Dr. Vandana Shiva, Canadian biologist and broadcaster Dr.David Suzuki, Dr.Hermann Scheer, chairman of the World Council for Renewable Energy, and Sheila Watt-Cloutier, chairperson of the Inuit Circumpolar Council. It has been endorsed in a personal capacity by Dr Rajendra Pachauri, head of the IPCC. The world's leading climate economist Sir Nicholas Stern describes it as "a very sensible long-term target"
Activism to Protect the Climate
On 24th October 2009, many activists around the world joined forces to organize an International Day of Climate Action. They generated and sent in thousands of creative digital images recording unique individual contributions to a global demonstration for a Safe Climate Future and the 350 ppm target. Climbers high on the Swiss Alps held up 350 banners, bicycle parades took place in San Francisco and Copenhagen, churches in Barcelona rang their bells 350 times, people protested coal plants and celebrated windfarms, schoolchildren, Buddhist monks and other citizen groups formed the letters 350 with their bodies and were filmed from above, thousands of people marched under the 350 banner in the streets of Bogota, Kathmandu, Addis Ababa, Mexico City, Togo and Seattle. It was the biggest news story of the day on Google, CNN and many newspapers around the world. It showed that a global climate protection movement is not only possible, but sufficiently informed and determined to set a new agenda.
One of many images from the International Day of Climate Action organized by
environmentalist Bill McKibben & colleagues at 350.org
U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon sent this message to the organizers:
"I would like to thank the millions of people in 181 countries who participated in 350.org's Day of Climate Action on October 24th. It was one of the most inspiring examples of grassroots political action on global warming the world has ever witnessed. This Day of Climate Action came at a critical time in the global negotiations, and demonstrated that people around the world - from Ethiopia to India and Paraguay to the United States - understand the scientific challenge the world faces. I encourage governments to heed the example set by their citizens, and to take strong action to address this crisis through bold, visionary leadership"
Learning from Copenhagen
Elsewhere, on the Science section of this website, we present a diverse set of informed reactions to the Copenhagen conference and the weak agreement that resulted from it. They range from David Aaronovitch's astute We Needed Copenhagen to Tell Us That This Was All True to Mark Lynas's compelling eyewitness report of how China deliberately wrecked the talks and Craig Simons pithy summary, The Verdict on Copenhagen Is In. How does all this impact the 350 target? Bill McKibben of 350.org summarizes the new situation as follows:
Copenhagen was marked by a focus on power politics, not science. Though 117 nations endorsed the 350 ppm CO2 target that researchers say is necessary to ward off the very worst effects of climate change, they were the wrong 117--the poor nations, the most vulnerable nations. The real addicts--led by the U.S.--simply weren't ready to come to terms with their need to dramatically cut emissions, and so the session ended with a whimper, the so-called Copenhagen Accord which promises nothing, enforces nothing, accomplishes nothing.
The failure of those talks does nothing to slow down the progress of climate change, of course. This is a fight between human beings on the one hand, and physics and chemistry on the other--and physics and chemistry don't really bargain. So glaciers like Bolivia's Chacaltaya continue to disappear, and Arctic ice to melt, and seawater to acidify. We don't have all the time in the world--we don't, in fact, have a moment to spare.