Emission pathways consistent with a 2 °C global temperature limit (original) (raw)

Nature Climate Change volume 1, pages 413–418 (2011)Cite this article

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Abstract

In recent years, international climate policy has increasingly focused on limiting temperature rise, as opposed to achieving greenhouse-gas-concentration-related objectives. The agreements reached at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change conference in Cancun in 2010 recognize that countries should take urgent action to limit the increase in global average temperature to less than 2 °C relative to pre-industrial levels[1](/articles/nclimate1258#ref-CR1 "United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Report of the Conference of the Parties on its Sixteenth Session, held in Cancun from 29 November to 10 December 2010 (FCCC/CP/2010/7/Add.1, United Nations, 2011); available at http://unfcc.int/resource/docs/2010/cop16/eng/07a01.pdf

            ."). If this is to be achieved, policymakers need robust information about the amounts of future greenhouse-gas emissions that are consistent with such temperature limits. This, in turn, requires an understanding of both the technical and economic implications of reducing emissions and the processes that link emissions to temperature. Here we consider both of these aspects by reanalysing a large set of published emission scenarios from integrated assessment models in a risk-based climate modelling framework. We find that in the set of scenarios with a ‘likely’ (greater than 66%) chance of staying below 2 °C, emissions peak between 2010 and 2020 and fall to a median level of 44 Gt of CO2 equivalent in 2020 (compared with estimated median emissions across the scenario set of 48 Gt of CO2 equivalent in 2010). Our analysis confirms that if the mechanisms needed to enable an early peak in global emissions followed by steep reductions are not put in place, there is a significant risk that the 2 °C target will not be achieved.

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Figure 1: Emission ranges of published IAM scenarios, colour coded as a function of the likely (greater than 66% probability) avoided global average temperature increase.

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Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully thank everyone involved in the UNEP Emissions Gap Report, and acknowledge the contributions of all modelling groups that provided data and information, all co-authors from the UNEP Emissions Gap Report and others who provided comments, in particular B. Knopf, G. Luderer, E. Sawin, B. O’Neill, B. Ward, N. Ranger, V. Bossetti and R. Knutti. J.R. was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (project 200021-135067). J.L. was supported by the Joint DECC/Defra Met Office Hadley Centre Climate Programme (GA01101) and the AVOID programme (GA0215).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, ETH Zurich, Universitätstrasse 16, 8092 Zürich, Switzerland
    Joeri Rogelj
  2. Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), 14412 Potsdam, PO Box 60 12 03, Germany
    William Hare & Malte Meinshausen
  3. Climate Analytics GmbH, Telegrafenberg A26, 14412 Potsdam, Germany
    William Hare
  4. Department of Meteorology, Met Office Hadley Centre, University of Reading, Reading RG6 6BB, UK
    Jason Lowe
  5. PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, 3720 AH Bilthoven, PO Box 303, The Netherlands
    Detlef P. van Vuuren
  6. Utrecht Sustainability Institute, Utrecht University, Heidelberglaan 2, 3584 CS Utrecht, The Netherlands
    Detlef P. van Vuuren
  7. Energy Program, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Schlossplatz 1, A-2361 Laxenburg, Austria
    Keywan Riahi
  8. Georges Lemaître Centre for Earth & Climate Research, Université Catholique de Louvain, Place de l’Université 1, B-1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
    Ben Matthews
  9. National Institute for Environmental Studies, 16-2 Onogawa, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8506, Japan
    Tatsuya Hanaoka
  10. Energy Research Institute, B1505, Jia. No. 11, Muxidibeili, Xichen Dist., Beijing 100038, China
    Kejun Jiang
  11. School of Earth Sciences, University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia
    Malte Meinshausen

Authors

  1. Joeri Rogelj
  2. William Hare
  3. Jason Lowe
  4. Detlef P. van Vuuren
  5. Keywan Riahi
  6. Ben Matthews
  7. Tatsuya Hanaoka
  8. Kejun Jiang
  9. Malte Meinshausen

Contributions

J.R., W.H., J.L., K.R., B.M., M.M. and D.P.v.V. designed the research. M.M. developed the climate model set-up. J.R. carried out the research. All authors discussed the results and contributed to writing the paper.

Corresponding author

Correspondence toJoeri Rogelj.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Rogelj, J., Hare, W., Lowe, J. et al. Emission pathways consistent with a 2 °C global temperature limit.Nature Clim Change 1, 413–418 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate1258

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