date: Sat, 3 Nov 2007 14:39:34 -0400 from: Richard Somerville subject: Request to: jhc@dmi.dk, V.Ramaswamy@noaa.gov, Herve.LeTreut@lmd.jussieu.fr, Piers Forster , peter.lemke@awi.de, Nathan Bindoff , jto@u.arizona.edu, Phil Jones , richard.wood@metoffice.gov.uk, meehl@ncar.ucar.edu, stocker@climate.unibe.ch, Bruce Hewitson , Dave Randall Dear Colleagues, I am one of a group that has drafted a Declaration on Climate Change to be released at the UN climate change negotiations in Bali, Indonesia in early December 2007. We have plans for a major press conference in Bali to announce the declaration. Over the next few weeks, we are seeking signatures for the declaration from up to perhaps 100 climate scientists from around the world. Our goal is quality, not quantity. The declaration is self-explanatory. The text is pasted below. Without going into details of the Bali negotiations process, our focus is to create momentum around an appropriately low greenhouse gas concentration stabilization target. In the absence of framing the issue as we propose, some governments are virtually certain to advocate much higher targets for equivalent carbon dioxide stabilization values, with correspondingly greater climate risks. Please consider signing this declaration. People will sign as individuals, not on behalf of their organizations. Please do not delay. We have very little time before Bali. The declaration text is posted and is available for signing now at http://www.climate.unsw.edu.au/bali/ On the web site, you can see the names of those who have already signed. The list of signers is now chronological. We will alphabetize it before we release it. The names of several members of the drafting group appear early in the chronological list (England, Pitman, Rahmstorf, Somerville). Signing on the web site is password-protected (the password is "climate"). We have done this to ensure that the list of signatures is manageable and focused. We seek only well-qualified climate scientists and wish to avoid large numbers of other people signing. Therefore, please send any correspondence to us. We also want to avoid engaging the media until closer to the time of the meeting. Please send us suggestions of additional people whom you would like to see asked to sign this declaration. So that we can keep control of this process, please don't forward this message to email lists, etc. Instead, please suggest names to us at these email addresses: Matthew England , Stefan Rahmstorf , Andy Pitman , Richard Somerville . Many thanks, and best regards, Richard Somerville Prof. Richard C. J. Somerville Scripps Institution of Oceanography University of California, San Diego, USA Here is the text of the declaration: The 2007 IPCC report, compiled by several hundred climate scientists, has unequivocally concluded that our climate is warming rapidly, and that we are now at least 90% certain that this is mostly due to human activities. The amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere now far exceeds the natural range of the past 650,000 years, and it is rising very quickly due to human activity. If this trend is not halted soon, many millions of people will be at risk from extreme events such as heat waves, drought, floods and storms, our coasts and cities will be threatened by rising sea levels, and many ecosystems, plants and animal species will be in serious danger of extinction. The next round of focused negotiations for a new global climate treaty (within the 1992 UNFCCC process) needs to begin in December 2007 and be completed by 2009. The prime goal of this new regime must be to limit global warming to no more than 2 ºC above the pre-industrial temperature, a limit that has already been formally adopted by the European Union and a number of other countries. Based on current scientific understanding, this requires that global greenhouse gas emissions need to be reduced by at least 50% below their 1990 levels by the year 2050. In the long run, greenhouse gas concentrations need to be stabilised at a level well below 450 ppm (parts per million; measured in CO2-equivalent concentration). In order to stay below 2 ºC, global emissions must peak and decline in the next 10 to 15 years, so there is no time to lose. As scientists, we urge the negotiators to reach an agreement that takes these targets as a minimum requirement for a fair and effective global climate agreement.