ABSTRACT
Since the 1992 adoption of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), whose core mandate is to ‘prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system’, the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) has risen dramatically and the rate at which the concentration is rising has accelerated in recent years (Canadell et al 2007). During the same time period evidence has mounted that the measured increase in global average temperature over the last century—caused substantially by CO2 and other greenhouse gases (GHGs) added to the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution—is resulting in adverse effects to ecosystems, precipitating glacier melt in most mountainous regions and beginning to disintegrate the ice cover at both poles. 2 Scientific evidence strongly supports the case not only for GHG emissions cuts, but for deep cuts in a matter of decades; 3 the interests to be protected here are not just those of future generations, but those of people now living.
