Abstract

Are the commitments from Copenhagen enough? The bad news is that the answer is «no». This article examines the targets communicated to the UNFCCC in early February by major economies and the agreement to allocate funding to mitigate climate change. A scenario of global greenhouse gas emissions is produced using as a support tool the Integrated Assessment Model WITCH. Emissions in 2020 are found to be higher than what required to achieve low temperature targets. However, the good news is that if the funding promised in Copenhagen is carefully allocated, there is the potential to reduce greatly the gap between targets and reality by financing cheap abatement actions in Developing Countries.