Are we moving in the right direction?
The Earth’s climate has changed markedly during the last hundred years. Thirteen of the warmest years since records began in 1860 have been in the past 10 years.
The global mean temperature varies a lot from year to year. The warmest year on record was 2005, with a global mean temperature 0.62°C above the average for the period 1961–1990. Since then temperatures have dropped somewhat. In 2008 global mean temperature was 0.48°C above the average, while 2009 was warmer (0.56°C above average).
What is being done?
Both the EU and Norway have adopted the target of limiting global warming to 2°C. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), global greenhouse gas emissions must be cut by 50–85 per cent from the 2000 level by 2050, and must peak by 2015, in order to keep the average rise in temperature to 2.0–2.4°C. To achieve this long-term target, the developed countries must reduce their emissions by 25– 40 per cent by 2020, and in addition the growth in emissions in developing countries must be checked.
Global emissions have continued to rise since 2000. The largest increases have been in developing countries, but emissions have also risen in a number of developed countries, including the US, Canada, Australia and Norway. The last two years the financial crisis has led to a decrease in emissions in several countries.
The EU and various developed countries have set targets for emissions cuts of 25–40 per cent by 2020. However, even with these reductions it is unlikely that global emissions will peak and then start to decline in the course of the next ten years.
One major source of CO2 emissions is deforestation and forest degradation. According to the IPCC, reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) will be an important mitigation option in the fight against global warming. REDD is relatively cost-effective and can bring about large-scale reductions in emissions relatively rapidly.
Norway's International Climate and Forest Initiative was launched by Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg during the Bali climate summit in December 2007 and became operational in spring 2008. One of its goals is to work towards the inclusion of emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries in a new international climate regime.
International climate negotiations continue, the next climate summit in will take place in Mexico, in December 2010.