Now, some researchers today say that we rather need to stabilise at around 450 ppm (see also 350.org which is only about carbon dioxide itself). That is not the IPCC consensus, but a lot of scientists are convinced of it.
If we talk about that, then 50% by 2020 would be more in order.
I have mixed feelings about these targets. On the one hand you see that it's not optimal to set them because they induce some kind of inertia. On the other hand, you might want inertia because a more flexible, step-based system could easily be exploited.
Moving the Overton Window requires two groups ... those standing outside the window pulling it in that direction, and those standing inside the wind pushing it in that direction.
And a crucial element is, of course, Shock Doctrine. If there is a shock that opens the possibility for a substantial institutional reform, it will tend to come from those options that are already seen as being on the table - so given that we know that the current level of targets under "serious" consideration guarantees a sequence of very hard shocks, getting an option as being seen as on the table even if an option is not seen as being a "serious possibility" is well worth doing. I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.
And a crucial element is, of course, Shock Doctrine.
supplied, as instrument of last resort, by Mother Nature... ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
Solomon's report "is quite important, not alarmist, and very important for the current debates on climate policy," added Jonathan Overpeck, a climate researcher at the University of Arizona.
"This aspect is one that is poorly appreciated by policymakers and the general public and it is real," said Trenberth, who was not part of the research group.
"The temperature changes and the sea level changes are, if anything underestimated and quite conservative, especially for sea level," he said.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hMRqVHPx5vcRCKXVKbFlnKZrVJOQD95V4HBG0
It may be that we have a set of technological and macroeconomic conditions that naturally lead to a much greater reduction, and the bottom will fall out of the ETS market, again. Then the ETS will just have been a very expensive kind of insurance policy.
