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We are accelerating towards a cliff edge.
If we want a future we can live in,
we must stop accelerating, brake extremely hard,
and then put it in reverse.

In this section

The four key take home messages of the Target 300 Campaign

The four key goals of the Target 300 Campaign

To create a safe climate we must stabilise greenhouse gas atmospheric concentrations at a level which:

1. maintains critical climate maintenance systems
2. prevents the passing the point of no return where it is difficult if not impossible to return the climate to a stable state

Unfortunately science has shown we have already passed the point where critical climate systems have begun to degrade, and created positive feed back loops, which are accelerating their own degradation and beginning the degradation of other climate stabilising systems.

Current leading climate science suggests that a number of critical climate systems began to degrade at atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations of between 300-350ppm CO2. One system, the Arctic Summer ice, began to degrade between 300-325 ppm CO2, all far below today's levels of 387 ppm CO2 (2009).

This means we have long passed out of the safe climate change zone into dangerous climate change, and now must reverse global warming as quickly as possible by reducing atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations to some where within the range of 300-325 ppm CO2.

Yet we don't know where in the 300-325 ppm CO2 a safe level of CO2 is, and therefore we need to aim for the bottom end of this range, at 300 ppm CO2, and perhaps even lower to pre-industrial levels of 280 ppm CO2.

With the continuing degradation of these climate stabilising systems, it is possible that we are approaching the point of no return, giving us very little time to act.

By a simple choice of cutting back and being careful with our consumption, energy use and eating habbits, those of us living above the poverty line in the developed world could easily reduce our emissions by 50% or more, individually or collectively, immediately.

If we can achieve 50% today, what should be our targets for 2020? Certainly more than the 20-40% target commonly argued and much more than the rediculous 5% proposed by the Rudd Government here in Australia. In fact our goal should be to achieve negative emissions by 2020, potentially achievable if we started a climate emergency response if we can start in the next couple of years.

To achieve this we must convert our power, transport, and agriculture systems to zero emission or near zero emission systems over ten years, in order to rapidly reduce atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations. We will support and accelerate this reduction by actively removing CO2 from the atmosphere by activities such as replanting trees and storing carbon in agricultural soils.

The good news is we already have all the technical solutions we need to reduce our emissions; we just need the political will to implement them.

Why ten years? Simply because it is likely to take us ten years to do it if we work at emergency speed. If we could do it in five, we should do it in five.

Target 300 explores a range of potential solutions in "Saving the World: Three Problems at a Time". Find out more.

The Science

James Hansen, is the director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Adjunct Professor at the Columbia University Earth Institute. He is one of the worlds leading climate scientists. Hansen has recently released a paper titled "Target Atmospheric CO2: Where Should Humanity Aim?" In this paper he concludes that we need to return atmospheric concentrations to between 300-325 ppm CO2 to re-establish summer sea ice in the North Pole.

The North Pole summer sea ice is just one of a number of critical climate systems that are needed to maintain a stable safe climate. Without it, other systems, including the Greenland ice mass and the frozen methane trapped in Arctic permafrost, will respond to global warming and add greatly to the problem by creating destructive sea level rise and massive release of additional greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

We don't know exactly where safe CO2 levels lie within the 300-325 ppm CO2 range so if we wish to avoid a climate catastrophe, we must aim for 300 ppm CO2 or below. Hansen has said we have at most decades to return our atmospheric greenhouse gas levels to safe levels.

This issue is discussed more comprehensively here.

The world is already too hot. There are too much greenhouse gases in the atmosphere trapping too much heat. This means we need to create a global cooling as soon as possible.

To achieve a global cooling, we must reduce the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. However, the main greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide or CO2 only has a long life in the atmoshpere and scientists estimate that a significant proportion of CO2 released in the atmoshpere today will still be there in 100s of years.

Methane on the other hand only has a life of 12 years (USA EPA) in the atmosphere. It is a significant greenhouse gas, trapping more heat per molecule than CO2.

If we cease releasing methane into the atmosphere, currently produced mainly from farming ruminant animals such as cows and sheep, growing rice, and also coal mining, we can reduce the global warming effects of methane over a decade.

At the same time we need to actively sequester carbon by replanting trees and vegetation, and building soil carbon to support natural sequestration.

Currently around 50% of the CO2 we put into the atmosphere is removed by natural processes such as being absorbed by the oceans or plants and soils. However, the ability of these natural carbon sinks is reducing with increasing temperatures and levels of CO2.

Leadership

It is vital we call for climate goals that will result in a safe climate. However, the environment movement, its leadership and its climate campaigners, have to date failed to provide effective leadership on the issue of goals and targets.

Their response has been typified by a reluctance to go beyond the accepted conservative position, selective emphasis of old or conservative science, failure to apply appropriate risk assessment strategies, failure to advocate for and develop large scale systemic solutions. Instead calling for goals that totally fail to meet their organisational mandate to protect the natural environment and / or typically are far too low and over too longer a time frame, that, even if achieved, would not avoid passing the point of no return and a run away climate event.

This failure of leadership is typified by Australia's environment movement adopting Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger’s climate goals one year after they were adopted in California. The conservative economist Ross Garnaut has called for 90% reduction by 2050 ahead of the biggest Australian environment groups.

Fortunately grass roots campaigners in Australia such as Philip Sutton (Greenleap Strategic Institute), Adrian Whitehead (Target 300/Vote Climate), Matthew Wright (Beyond Zero Emissions) and more recently David Spratt (Carbon Equity), have presented an alternative view and called for a reduction in atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations.

Further good news is that these calls have recently been taken up by a growing number of grass root and community campaigners.

Taking Action

We have a chance to save the future. If we take that chance there is the possibility we can reverse the effects of climate change while building a better world that works for the benefit of all. But to save the future we must act and act now on a global scale of change never before seen in human history. To achieve this, everybody must be involved and that means you.

If you are reading this page, you are either a long way down the road to taking meaningful action on climate change or one of the perpetrators of the crime. If you are one of those trying to save the future for humanity or the other species we share this planet with, I encourage you to visit the campaign section of this website to find out how you might seek to maximise your personal impact in the collective effort to stop climate change or take a look at the solutions section.

Definitions

Climate maintenance systems - the climate is a incredibly complex system made up of inputs that range from the heat of the sun, concentration of greenhouse gases, the role of clouds, and function of the earth's biota just to name a few. Some of these systems are critical to maintaining a stable climate. One such system is the North Pole's summer ice. Without this ice, the Arctic will heat up to such an extent that a number of other positive feedback loops will be triggered and any chance of maintaining a stable climate suitable for the majority of the world humans and species will be lost.

Positive feedback loops - some systems respond to global warming and can further increase or decrease global warming. If the response speeds up climate change it is called a positive feedback loop. Examples include the melting of the North Pole summer ice. As the North Pole summer ice melts and exposes more ocean surface, less sunlight is reflected and more heat enters the Arctic system, this in turn melts more ice and so on.

Point of no return - the point at which human effort can no longer reverse climate heating and through positive feed back loops the climate system continues to heat out of our control.

More definitions

>Home >Introduction

300 ppm CO2 or below is the stabilisation target for a safe climate.