In the closing session of the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference, Stefan Rahmstorf of Germanys Potsdam Institute stressed how he sees the 2 degree target for climate change as an absolute upper limit, not just a guideline.
RAHMSTORF: I want to emphasize that when as scientists we talk about those two degrees, that really is a kind of upper limit that we really should not cross. I personally as a climate scientist, I could not honestly go and tell the public that two degrees warming is safe. We're already seeing a lot of impacts of the 0.7 degrees warming that we've had so far.
So I consider two degrees not safe.
And John Schellnhuber this morning asked about the question "Is Russian roulette dangerous?" and in Russian roulette you have a one in six chance of something terrible happening, I think that when we go to two degrees we probably have more than a one in six chance of really bad impacts occurring.
