December 11, 2011
UCS MEDIA ALERT
Contact: Sarah Goldberg, 215-370-2110, sgoldberg@ucsusa.org

Just moments ago, negotiators at the climate summit in Durban agreed to preserve the Kyoto Protocol; launched a process for building a more comprehensive and ambitious treaty regime; and advanced the building blocks of the Cancun Agreements by adopting decisions on adaptation, finance, mitigation, technology and transparency.

Below is a statement by Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS).

“While governments avoided disaster in Durban, they by no means responded adequately to the mounting threat of climate change. The decisions adopted here fall well short of what is needed. It's high time governments stopped catering to the needs of corporate polluters, and started acting to protect people.

“The impacts of climate change are ever more evident, and we pump ever more carbon pollution into the atmosphere each year. We are in grave danger of locking in temperature increases well above two degrees Celsius, which would foreclose our ability to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

“Powerful speeches and carefully worded decisions can’t amend the laws of physics. The atmosphere responds to one thing, and one thing only – emissions. The world’s collective level of ambition on emissions reductions must be substantially increased, and soon.”

The Union of Concerned Scientists is the leading U.S. science-based nonprofit organization working for a healthy environment and a safer world. Founded in 1969, UCS is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and also has offices in Berkeley, Chicago and Washington, D.C.