A warning that we need to plan for a much warmer world has come from consultant PwC.
Writing in its latest annual Low Carbon Economy Index - 'Too Late For Two Degrees?' - Leo Johnson, partner, sustainability and climate change at PwC, said: 'This year we estimated that the required improvement in global carbon intensity to meet a 2 deg C warming target has risen to 5.1 per cent a year, from now to 2050. We have passed a critical threshold - not once since World War 2 has the world achieved that rate of decarbonisation, but the task now confronting us is to achieve it for 39 consecutive years.'

According to PwC, the 2011 rate of improvement in carbon intensity was 0.7 per cent, giving an average rate of decarbonisation of 0.8 per cent a year since 2000.

Mr Johnson said: 'Even doubling our current rate of decarbonisation, would still lead to emissions consistent with 6 degrees of warming by the end of the century. To give ourselves a more than 50% chance of avoiding 2 degrees will require a six-fold improvement in our rate of decarbonisation.'

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