Global warming targets should be tougher UN climate chief

The world should agree to limit global warming to just 1.5C instead of the current target of 2C,  to save low level islands like  the San Blas archipelago  from disappearing, says the UN climate chief.

Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the UN framework convention on climate change, said: "Two degrees is not enough – we should be thinking of 1.5C. If we are not headed to 1.5C we are in big, big trouble."

Scientists estimate that 2C of warming is the limit of safety, beyond which climate change becomes catastrophic and irreversible says a report in The Guardian and republished by the UN.

Last December at a UN climate conference in Cancun, Mexico, all countries reached a consensus on a 2C target, the first time the world's governments had set a target limit on climate change.

But Figueres said reaching 2C of warming would have a devastating impact, such as sea-level rises that could overwhelm low-lying islands and some coastal nations, and levels of warming in sub-Saharan Africa that could severely damage agriculture.

Figueres was speaking at Carbon Expo, the annual conference of the International Emissions Trading Association.

For Figueres to reopen the debate on the proposed target is regarded as dangerous by some countries, who fear that a push by the UN for a tougher target would derail the already fragile negotiations that officials have been trying to reconstruct after the 2009 summit in Copenhagen ended in only a partial agreement, amid acrimony and scenes of chaos.

Developed nations and some rapidly emerging economies, such as China, want to stick to the weaker target of 2C, arguing that it would be impossible to opt for the tougher target at this stage.