Spending our carbon budgets wisely

The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) sent a clear message to the world with its last report, issued in early October in South Korea: the world needs to act immediately to cut greenhouse gas emissions. The report says that human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) need to fall by about 45 per cent from 2010 levels by 2030, and by 100 per cent by 2050.