date: Sat, 3 Nov 2007 14:39:34 -0400
from: Richard Somerville <rsomerville@ucsd.edu>
subject: Request
to: jhc@dmi.dk, V.Ramaswamy@noaa.gov, Herve.LeTreut@lmd.jussieu.fr, Piers Forster <piers@env.leeds.ac.uk>, peter.lemke@awi.de, Nathan Bindoff <n.bindoff@utas.edu.au>, jto@u.arizona.edu, Phil Jones <p.jones@uea.ac.uk>, richard.wood@metoffice.gov.uk, meehl@ncar.ucar.edu, stocker@climate.unibe.ch, Bruce Hewitson <hewitson@egs.uct.ac.za>, Dave Randall <randall@atmos.colostate.edu>

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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 
<M.England@unsw.edu.au>, Stefan Rahmstorf 
<rahmstorf@ozean-klima.de>, Andy Pitman 
<A.Pitman@unsw.edu.au>, Richard Somerville 
<rsomerville@ucsd.edu>.

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 C 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 C, 
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.


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