This article identifies and quantifies the 10 most important benchmarks for climate action to be taken by 2020-2025 to keep the window open for a 1.5°C-consistent GHG emission pathway. We conducted a comprehensive review of existing emissions scenarios, scanned all sectors and the respective necessary transitions, and distilled the most important short-term benchmarks for action in line with the long-term perspective of the required global low-carbon transition. Owing to the limited carbon budget, combined with the inertia of existing systems, global energy economic models find only limited pathways to stay on track for a 1.5°C world consistent with the long-term temperature goal of the Paris Agreement.The identified benchmarks include:. Sustain the current growth rate of renewables and other zero and low-carbon power generation until 2025 to reach 100% share by 2050; . No new coal power plants, reduce emissions from existing coal fleet by 30% by 2025;. Last fossil fuel passenger car sold by 2035-2050;. Develop and agree on a 1.5°C-consistent vision for aviation and shipping;. All new buildings fossil-free and near-zero energy by 2020;. Increase building renovation rates from less than 1% in 2015 to 5% by 2020;. All new installations in emissions-intensive sectors low-carbon after 2020, maximize material efficiency; . Reduce emissions from forestry and other land use to 95% below 2010 levels by 2030, stop net deforestation by 2025; . Keep agriculture emissions at or below current levels, establish and disseminate regional best practice, ramp up research; . Accelerate research and planning for negative emission technology deployment. Key policy insights. These benchmarks can be used when designing policy options that are 1.5°C, Paris Agreement consistent. . They require technology diffusion and sector transformations at a large scale and high speed, in many cases immediate introduction of zero-carbon technologies, not marginal efficiency improvements. . For most benchmarks we show that there are signs that the identified needed transitions are possible: in some specific cases it is already happening.
Abstract. Current global mitigation ambition up to 2030 under the Paris Agreement, reflected in the National Determined Contributions (NDCs), is insufficient to achieve the agreement's 1.5 ∘C long-term temperature limit. As governments are preparing new and updated NDCs for 2020, the question as to how much collective improvement is achieved is a pivotal one for the credibility of the international climate regime. The recent Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 ∘C by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has assessed a wide range of scenarios that achieve the 1.5 ∘C limit. Those pathways are characterised by a substantial increase in near-term action and total greenhouse gas (GHG) emission levels about 50 % lower than what is implied by current NDCs. Here we assess the outcomes of different scenarios of NDC updating that fall short of achieving this 1.5 ∘C benchmark. We find that incremental improvements in reduction targets, even if achieved globally, are insufficient to align collective ambition with the goals of the Paris Agreement. We provide estimates for global mean temperature increase by 2100 for different incremental NDC update scenarios and illustrate climate impacts under those median scenarios for extreme temperature, long-term sea-level rise and economic damages for the most vulnerable countries. Under the assumption of maintaining ambition as reflected in current NDCs up to 2100 and beyond, we project a reduction in the gross domestic product (GDP) in tropical countries of around 60 % compared to a no-climate-change scenario and median long-term sea-level rise of close to 2 m in 2300. About half of these impacts can be avoided by limiting warming to 1.5 ∘C or below. Scenarios of more incremental NDC improvements do not lead to comparable reductions in climate impacts. An increase in aggregated NDC ambition of big emitters by 33 % in 2030 does not reduce presented climate impacts by more than about half compared to limiting warming to 1.5 ∘C. Our results underscore that a transformational increase in 2030 ambition is required to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement and avoid the worst impacts of climate change.
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