So we are starting to see the first assessments of the failure to reach any significant agreement at Copenhagen at the end of 2009.  A study by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impacts Research in Germany has been published in Nature and it reports that a rise of at least 3°C by 2100 is likely.

The report states that the current national emissions targets could lock the world into exceeding 3 °C warming.  A summary of the report states:
• Nations will probably meet only the lower ends of their emissions pledges in the absence of a binding international agreement
• Nations can bank an estimated 12 gigatonnes of CO2 equivalents surplus allowances for use after 2012
• Land-use rules are likely to result in further allowance increases of 0.5 GtCO2-eq per year
• Global emissions in 2020 could thus be up to 20% higher than today
• Current pledges mean a greater than 50% chance that warming will exceed 3°C by 2100
• If nations agree to halve emissions by 2050, there is still a 50% chance that warming will exceed 2°C and will almost certainly exceed 1.5°C

In the Nature article, the Potsdam team describing the COP15 pledges as “paltry”.  “The prospects for limiting global warming to 2°C – or even to 1.5°C, as more than 100 nations demand – are in dire peril,” they conclude.

From the BBC Website: Chances of a 3°C rise are higher than evens, the team calculates (simplified from Potsdam Institute’s Nature paper)

Personally I think they are being optimistic.  I believe we will see 3°C much sooner than suggested in this report. 

So if these figures are correct then the most serious impact of climate change is over 90 years away, then why worry and let’s find a great big sand pit to bury our heads in, as most of us will be dead and it is someone else’s problem!  Oh but wait a minute if we have 3°C rise which results in one or more of the tipping points being reached then desertification will increase around the planet and we will all be up to our necks in sand.  So we have two options: get used to sand or reduce our carbon emissions dramatically.