If one is to accept key recommendations from scientific policy advisors, emissions will have to be reduced significantly between 2010 and 2020 to stay below the 2°C limit. Yet given that global emissions trends are moving in the opposite direction and will be impossible to reverse in a matter of a few years, this goal is patently unrealistic. And since a target that is obviously unattainable cannot fulfill either a positive symbolic function or a productive governance function, the primary target of international climate policy will have to be modified.

The express aim of this paper is to stand apart from the innumerable studies detailing theoretically possible measures to avoid crossing the 2°C threshold. Instead, it provides the first systematic analysis of possible options for modifying the 2°C target. A particular focus is placed here on the relationship between climate science and climate policy.

Since the EU brought the objective into the climate policy arena, the modification of the 2°C target carries the risk of damaging the EU's public image. Furthermore, it would lead to a debate over the easing of the EU's internal emissions reduction objectives which are directly derived from the 2°C target. This could become a highly controversial issue in the coming years, when the EU has to decide on its legally binding emissions target for 2030.

The new Libya is deeply divided. Two opposing camps are emerging from a fragmented political landscape dominated by local actors. Representatives of forces presenting themselves as revolutionary seek root-and-branch renewal of the political and business elite to their advantage. They face a heterogeneous camp of established, moderate and conservative forces that seek to draw a line under the period of upheaval, and fear further loss of influence. This rift runs right through the General National Congress, but also between individual cities and tribes, and between different elements in the security sector. It will in all likelihood dominate the upcoming constitutional process. The question of the role of Islam contains much less potential for conflict. Another consequence of the civil war, the rise of local interest groups and the relative weakness of the central government, is likely to remain a defining feature of Libyan politics for years to come.

Depending on which of these perceptions prevails, this leads to two opposing assessments of Iran: either that its policies are dominated by religious irrationalism, which combined with the Iranian nuclear programme represents a global threat – adherents of this view believe the international community should rigorously oppose this programme; or the opposite view that ideology is only window dressing for a nation-state acting rationally in defence of its own interests. A closer look at the main priorities of Iranian foreign policy reveals that neither of these positions is tenable in itself.