Professor Kevin Anderson and Dr Alice Bows are climate scientists at the prestigious Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Manchester, UK (for details of the Tyndall Centre see: http://www.tyndall.ac.uk/ ).
Professor Kevin Anderson and Dr Alice Bows of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Manchester, paper in the prestigious Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 2008: “According to the analysis conducted in this paper, stabilizing at 450 ppmv [carbon dioxide equivalent = CO2-e, atmospheric concentration measured in parts per million by volume; roughly the present level at 390 ppm CO2] requires, at least, global energy related emissions to peak by 2015, rapidly decline at 6-8% per year between 2020 and 2040, and for full decarbonization sometime soon after 2050 …Unless economic growth can be reconciled with unprecedented rates of decarbonization (in excess of 6% per year), it is difficult to envisage anything other than a planned economic recession being compatible with stabilization at or below 650 ppmv CO2-e … Ultimately, the latest scientific understanding of climate change allied with current emissions trends and a commitment to “limiting average global temperature increases to below 4oC above pre-industrial levels”, demands a radical reframing of both the climate change agenda, and the economic characterization of contemporary society.” [1].
[1]. Professor Kevin Anderson and Dr Alice Bows, Proc. Trans. Roy. Soc, A, 2008: http://www.tyndall.ac.uk/publications/journal_papers/fulltext.pdf .