scholarly journals Institutional “Paris Agreement Compatible” Mitigation Scenarios Evaluated Against the Paris Agreement 1.5°C Goal

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Brecha ◽  
Gaurav Ganti ◽  
Robin Lamboll ◽  
Zebedee Nicholls ◽  
Willion Hare ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Greenhouse Gas ◽  
Paris Agreement ◽  
Emissions Reduction ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
Private Companies ◽  
International Agencies ◽  
Development Plans ◽  
Nationally Determined Contributions ◽  
Short And Long Term

Abstract Since its adoption in 2015, governments, international agencies and private entities have increasingly recognized the implications of the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C long-term temperature goal (LTTG) for greenhouse gas emissions reduction planning in both the near- and long-term. Governments have submitted or are preparing updates of their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and are encouraged to submit long term low greenhouse gas development plans (Article 4 of the Agreement1), aimed at aligning short- and long-term strategies. The foundations on which country targets are based are guided, directly or indirectly, by a variety of sources of information judged to be authoritative, including scientific research institutes2, international agencies, or private companies. Importantly, such authoritative sources also affect planning and decision making by investors3 who aim to anticipate climate policies, and their decisions in turn can drive or hold back setting ambitious emissions-reduction targets.

Towards high-quality net-zero targets

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joeri Rogelj ◽  
Andy Reisinger ◽  
Annette Cowie ◽  
Oliver Geden
Keyword(s):  
Global Warming ◽  
Greenhouse Gas ◽  
Paris Agreement ◽  
Emissions Reduction ◽  
Special Report ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Net Zero ◽  
The World ◽  
Global Goal

<p>With the adoption of the Paris Agreement in 2015 the world has decided that warming should be kept well below 2°C while pursuing a limit of 1.5°C above preindustrial levels. The Paris Agreement also sets a net emissions reduction goal: in the second half of the century, the balance of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and removals should become net zero. Since 2018, in response to the publication of the IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C, a flurry of net zero target announcements has ensued. Many countries, cities, regions, companies, or other organisations have come forward with targets to reach net zero, or become carbon or climate neutral. These labels describe a wide variety of targets, and rarely detailed. Lack of transparency renders it impossible to understand their ultimate contribution towards the global goal. Here we present a set of key criteria that high-quality net zero targets should address. These nine criteria cover emissions, removals, timing, fairness and a long-term vision. Unless net zero targets provide clarity on these nine criteria, we may not know until it is too late whether the collective promise of net zero targets is adequate to meet the global goal of the Paris Agreement.</p>

Technical steps will vex post-Paris climate agenda

2016 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Natural Gas ◽  
Greenhouse Gas Emissions ◽  
Greenhouse Gas ◽  
Paris Agreement ◽  
Emissions Reduction ◽  
Annual Conference ◽  
Gas Emissions ◽  
Content Type ◽  
National Leader

Significance The Paris Agreement will enter into force on November 4, ahead of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) annual Conference of Parties (COP22) meeting in Marrakech, Morocco, which begins the following week. The two thresholds for entry into force -- more than 55 countries ratifying, accounting for 55% of global greenhouse gas emissions -- were met in early October. Impacts Activist states will continue to advance Paris-complementary measures in non-UNFCCC settings. The Paris Agreement's entry into force means that a signatory government can only withdraw in four years' time. However, a national leader willing to bear the diplomatic fallout could nevertheless undermine the pact through inaction and backsliding. The natural gas sector is a likely beneficiary of incremental international emissions reduction efforts.

scholarly journals The Montreal Protocol or the Paris Agreement as a Model for a Plastics Treaty?

AJIL Unbound ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 114 ◽  
pp. 212-216
Author(s):  
Elizabeth A. Kirk
Keyword(s):  
Iterative Process ◽  
Paris Agreement ◽  
Montreal Protocol ◽  
Emissions Reduction ◽  
Emissions Reductions ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Common But Differentiated Responsibilities ◽  
Alternative Materials ◽  
Nationally Determined Contributions ◽  
Over Time

The notion that a plastics treaty is necessary is gaining traction, but there is less agreement as to its content. Some, including this author, have suggested that a plastics treaty should be modelled on treaties such as the Montreal Protocol, which sets out a broad commitment to end the use of a particular material and then introduce regulations to ban particular forms of that material over time. This approach has an immediate appeal—it sends a signal to states and to industry that they must change their behaviors and products, while giving time to adapt to the new regulation and develop alternative materials or ways of working. The potential drawback of this approach is that some states simply will not accept such rigid standards. In addition, some states may prefer a second approach that is more obviously rooted in the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, which assigns different obligations to parties according to their respective capacities. Within the climate change regime, the Paris Agreement takes both approaches, asking states to set their own nationally determined contributions (NDCs) to emissions reductions (common but differentiated responsibilities) and then to revise these NDCs over time through an iterative process to deliver progressively more ambitious targets for emissions reduction (moving toward a ban) or mitigation. In reality, neither approach is entirely suited to regulating plastics, so a new approach to treaty-making is required. This new approach should focus on the outcomes desired rather than the practices that need to be regulated.

scholarly journals Deployment of Negative Emissions Technologies at the National Level: A Need for Holistic Feasibility Assessments

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terese Thoni ◽  
Silke Beck ◽  
Malgorzata Borchers ◽  
Johannes Förster ◽  
Knut Görl ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Greenhouse Gas ◽  
Greenhouse Gas Emission ◽  
National Level ◽  
Paris Agreement ◽  
Cultural Dimensions ◽  
Potential Contribution ◽  
Global Emission ◽  
Negative Emissions ◽  
Context Specific

The 2015 Paris Agreement aims to strengthen the global response to climate change, and to maintain an average global temperature well below 2°C, with aspirations toward 1.5°C, by means of balancing sources and sinks of greenhouse gas emissions. Following this, the importance of carbon dioxide removal in global emission pathways has been further emphasized, and Negative Emissions Technologies (NETs) that capture carbon from the atmosphere and remove it from the system have been put in the spotlight. NETs range from innovative, engineered technologies, to well-known approaches like afforestation/reforestation. These technologies essentially compensate for a shrinking carbon budget coupled with hard-to-abate future emissions, and a historical lack of action. However, none has been deployed at scales close to what is envisioned in emission pathways in line with the Paris Agreement goals. To understand the potential contribution of NETs to meet global emission goals, we need to better understand opportunities and constraints for deploying NETs on a national level. We examine 17 Long-Term Low Greenhouse Gas Emission Development Strategies (LT-LEDS), and discuss them in the context of available NETs feasibility assessments. Our mapping shows that most countries include NETs in their long-term strategies, and that enhancement of natural sinks is the most dominating type of NET in these strategies. In line with many feasibility assessments, LT-LEDS focus on technical and biophysical considerations, and neglect socio-cultural dimensions. We suggest that feasibility assessments at the national level need to be more holistic; context-specific and comprehensive in terms of aspects assessed.

Determining Impacts of NDC Enhancement on Country-Level Emissions

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Taryn Fransen ◽  
Mengpin Ge ◽  
Tina Huang
Keyword(s):  
Greenhouse Gas ◽  
Ghg Emissions ◽  
Technical Note ◽  
Paris Agreement ◽  
Ghg Mitigation ◽  
Country Level ◽  
Ghg Reduction ◽  
Nationally Determined Contributions

This technical note describes a method for determining whether and to what extent Parties to the Paris Agreement have enhanced their nationally determined contributions (NDCs) with respect to greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation. We estimate each Party’s target-year GHG emissions under its previous NDC (typically First NDC) and under its subsequent NDC (typically Updated First NDC or Second NDC). On this basis, we determine whether the subsequent NDC reduces emissions relative to the previous NDC and—where possible—by how much. We outline approaches for NDCs with GHG reduction targets and with non-GHG targets and policies.

Modifying emissions data and projections to incorporate the effects of lockdown in climate modelling

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin Lamboll ◽  
Piers Forster ◽  
Chris Jones ◽  
Ragnhild Skeie ◽  
Stephanie Fiedler ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Greenhouse Gas ◽  
General Circulation ◽  
Greenhouse Gas Emission ◽  
General Circulation Models ◽  
Climate Modelling ◽  
Mobility Data ◽  
Temperature Trends ◽  
Nationally Determined Contributions ◽  
Recovery Pathways

<p>Lockdowns to avoid the spread of COVID-19 have created an unprecedented reduction in human emissions, however emissions estimates are typically only available after one or more years, making it hard to incorporate these reductions into emissions projections. In this talk we will outline how mobility data and power usage can nowcast country-and-sector emissions of various gases. In this way we show that the short-term impact of lockdown on emissions data is not expected to be significant for long-term temperature trends.</p><p>We will also outline how different recovery pathways can be made using basic longer-term emissions projections and how to construct detailed scenarios for non-CO2 emissions, using assumptions about the effects of lockdown on nationally determined contributions and a new software package called Silicone that can infill missing greenhouse gas emissions. Silicone allows the consistent incorporation of tradeoffs between emission species as modelled by IAMs, and as expressed in available greenhouse gas emission scenarios, to be applied to the proposed pathways. We will then show how to make these projections into the more detailed, gridded, CMIP-6 compatible emissions estimates that are required to run General Circulation Models (GCM).</p>

Medium-to-long-term coupled strategies for energy efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions reduction in Beijing (China)

Energy Policy ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 127 ◽  
pp. 350-360 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dongyu Zhang ◽  
Gengyuan Liu ◽  
Caocao Chen ◽  
Yan Zhang ◽  
Yan Hao ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Energy Efficiency ◽  
Greenhouse Gas Emissions ◽  
Greenhouse Gas ◽  
Emissions Reduction ◽  
Gas Emissions ◽  
Beijing China

scholarly journals Path to net zero is critical to climate outcome

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tianyi Sun ◽  
Ilissa B. Ocko ◽  
Elizabeth Sturcken ◽  
Steven P. Hamburg
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Greenhouse Gas ◽  
Central Element ◽  
Standard Format ◽  
Early Action ◽  
Net Zero ◽  
Climate Action ◽  
Nationally Determined Contributions ◽  
Gas Targets

AbstractNet zero greenhouse gas targets have become a central element for climate action. However, most company and government pledges focus on the year that net zero is reached, with limited awareness of how critical the emissions pathway is in determining the climate outcome in both the near- and long-term. Here we show that different pathways of carbon dioxide and methane—the most prominent long-lived and short-lived greenhouse gases, respectively—can lead to nearly 0.4 °C of warming difference in midcentury and potential overshoot of the 2 °C target, even if they technically reach global net zero greenhouse gas emissions in 2050. While all paths achieve the Paris Agreement temperature goals in the long-term, there is still a 0.2 °C difference by end-of-century. We find that early action to reduce both emissions of carbon dioxide and methane simultaneously leads to the best climate outcomes over all timescales. We therefore recommend that companies and countries supplement net zero targets with a two-basket set of interim milestones to ensure that early action is taken for both carbon dioxide and methane. A one-basket approach, such as the standard format for Nationally Determined Contributions, is not sufficient because it can lead to a delay in methane mitigation.

scholarly journals Implications of possible interpretations of ‘greenhouse gas balance’ in the Paris Agreement

2018 ◽  
Vol 376 (2119) ◽  
pp. 20160445 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Fuglestvedt ◽  
J. Rogelj ◽  
R. J. Millar ◽  
M. Allen ◽  
O. Boucher ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Greenhouse Gas ◽  
Paris Agreement ◽  
Climate Forcing ◽  
Greenhouse Gas Balance ◽  
Social Challenges ◽  
Average Temperature ◽  
Net Zero ◽  
Warming World ◽  
Gas Balance

The main goal of the Paris Agreement as stated in Article 2 is ‘holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C’. Article 4 points to this long-term goal and the need to achieve ‘balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases'. This statement on ‘greenhouse gas balance’ is subject to interpretation, and clarifications are needed to make it operational for national and international climate policies. We study possible interpretations from a scientific perspective and analyse their climatic implications. We clarify how the implications for individual gases depend on the metrics used to relate them. We show that the way in which balance is interpreted, achieved and maintained influences temperature outcomes. Achieving and maintaining net-zero CO 2 -equivalent emissions conventionally calculated using GWP 100 (100-year global warming potential) and including substantial positive contributions from short-lived climate-forcing agents such as methane would result in a sustained decline in global temperature. A modified approach to the use of GWP 100 (that equates constant emissions of short-lived climate forcers with zero sustained emission of CO 2 ) results in global temperatures remaining approximately constant once net-zero CO 2 -equivalent emissions are achieved and maintained. Our paper provides policymakers with an overview of issues and choices that are important to determine which approach is most appropriate in the context of the Paris Agreement. This article is part of the theme issue ‘The Paris Agreement: understanding the physical and social challenges for a warming world of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels'.

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