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Cost and attainability of meeting stringent climate targets without overshoot

Riahi, Keywan; Bertram, Christoph; Huppmann, Daniel; Rogelj, Joeri; Bosetti, Valentina; Cabardos, Anique-Marie; Deppermann, Andre; Drouet, Laurent; Frank, Stefan; Fricko, Oliver; Fujimori, Shinichiro; Harmsen, Mathijs; Hasegawa, Tomoko; Krey, Volker; Luder

NATURE CLIMATE CHANGE
2021
VL / 11 - BP / 1063 - EP / +
abstract
Current emissions scenarios include pathways that overshoot the temperature goals set out in the Paris Agreement and rely on future net negative emissions. Limiting overshoot would require near-term investment but would result in longer-term economic benefit. Global emissions scenarios play a critical role in the assessment of strategies to mitigate climate change. The current scenarios, however, are criticized because they feature strategies with pronounced overshoot of the global temperature goal, requiring a long-term repair phase to draw temperatures down again through net-negative emissions. Some impacts might not be reversible. Hence, we explore a new set of net-zero CO2 emissions scenarios with limited overshoot. We show that upfront investments are needed in the near term for limiting temperature overshoot but that these would bring long-term economic gains. Our study further identifies alternative configurations of net-zero CO2 emissions systems and the roles of different sectors and regions for balancing sources and sinks. Even without net-negative emissions, CO2 removal is important for accelerating near-term reductions and for providing an anthropogenic sink that can offset the residual emissions in sectors that are hard to abate.

AccesS level

Bronze

MENTIONS DATA