by Eric Holthaus
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Miguel Arias Canete, the climate chief of the European Union, was in Washington this week for talks on climate change with the lead of the U.S. delegation, Todd Stern. He was quoted in the Guardian as saying, “If we have an ongoing process you cannot say it is a failure if the mitigation commitments do not reach 2°C.” Actually, you can. Because keeping climate change to less than 2-degrees Celsius—the arbitrary point at which scientists and world governments have agreed is the start of “dangerous interference with the climate system”—is the entire goal of the U.N. climate negotiations. That’s it. That’s what the world is fighting for. All of the eggs have been put in that basket.