Cumulative emissions and climate policy

Frame, David J.; Macey, Adrian; Allen, Myles

doi:10.1038/ngeo2254

Cited by 32 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…For fifteen CMIP5 models, Gillett et al (2013) calculated the mean ± standard deviation range for TCRE to be 1.63 ± 0.48 °C EgC -1 and a 5%-95% range for its observationally constrained value as 0.7-2.0 °C EgC -1 . The TCRE metric has gained significant policy relevance (Frame et al, 2014;Millar et al, 2016) and it is used to calculate the remaining allowable carbon emissions to reach a specified temperature change target above the preindustrial level (Millar et al, 2017;Rogelj et al, 2019).…”

Section: Changes In Ocean Carbon Pools For Diagnosing Feedback Paramementioning

confidence: 99%

Carbon-concentration and carbon-climate feedbacks in CMIP6 models, and their comparison to CMIP5 models

Arora¹,

Katavouta²,

Williams³

et al. 2019

Preprint

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Abstract. Results from the fully-, biogeochemically-, and radiatively-coupled simulations in which CO2 increases at a rate of 1&#8201;% per year (1pctCO2) from its pre-industrial value are analyzed to quantify the magnitude of two feedback parameters which characterize the coupled carbon-climate system. These feedback parameters quantify the response of ocean and terrestrial carbon pools to changes in atmospheric CO2 concentration and the resulting change in global climate. The results are based on eight comprehensive Earth system models from the fifth Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) and eleven models from the sixth CMIP (CMIP6). The comparison of model results from two CMIP phases shows that, for both land and ocean, the model mean values of the feedback parameters and their multi-model spread has not changed significantly across the two CMIP phases. The absolute values of feedback parameters are lower for land with models that include a representation of nitrogen cycle. The sensitivity of feedback parameters to the three different ways in which they may be calculated is shown and, consistent with existing studies, the most relevant definition is that calculated using results from the fully- and biogeochemically-coupled configurations. Based on these two simulations simplified expressions for the feedback parameters are obtained when the small temperature change in the biogeochemically-coupled simulation is ignored. Decomposition of the terms of these simplified expressions for the feedback parameters allows identification of the reasons for differing responses among ocean and land carbon cycle models.

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Section: Changes In Ocean Carbon Pools For Diagnosing Feedback Paramementioning

confidence: 99%

Carbon-concentration and carbon-climate feedbacks in CMIP6 models, and their comparison to CMIP5 models

Arora¹,

Katavouta²,

Williams³

et al. 2019

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…There is a growing interest in the climate science community to infer simplified metrics and climate policy frameworks from the relationships between temperature peaks and emissions [40,[55][56][57]. In Figure 2, we show the temperature peak dynamics of different WMGHGs following four idealized emission trajectories.…”

Section: Emissions and Temperature Peaksmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bridging the gap between impact assessment methods and climate science

Cherubini

Fuglestvedt

Gasser

et al. 2016

Environmental Science & Policy

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International audienceLife-cycle assessment and carbon footprint studies are widely used by decision makers to identify climate change mitigation options and priorities at corporate and public levels. These applications, including the vast majority of emission accounting schemes and policy frameworks, traditionally quantify climate impacts of human activities by aggregating greenhouse gas emissions into the so-called CO2-equivalents using the 100-year Global Warming Potential (GWP100) as the default emission metric. The practice was established in the early nineties and has not been coupled with progresses in climate science, other than simply updating numerical values for GWP100. We review the key insights from the literature surrounding climate science that are at odds with existing climate impact methods and we identify possible improvement options. Issues with the existing approach lie in the use of a single metric that cannot represent the climate system complexity for all possible research and policy contexts, and in the default exclusion of near-term climate forcers such as aerosols or ozone precursors and changes in the Earth’s energy balance associated with land cover changes. Failure to acknowledge the complexity of climate change drivers and the spatial and temporal heterogeneities of their climate system responses can lead to the deployment of suboptimal, and potentially even counterproductive, mitigation strategies. We argue for an active consideration of these aspects to bridge the gap between climate impact methods used in environmental impact analysis and climate science

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“…The cumulative carbon emissions concept was highlighted in the IPCC AR5, appearing prominently in the Summary for Policy Makers of Working Group I (IPCC 2013) and the Synthesis Report (IPCC 2014). While the cumulative emissions concept has many attractive features (Frame et al 2014), an important limitation is that it does not explicitly consider non-CO 2 gases at the country level, complicating its application in climate policy. Many non-CO 2 emissions are linked to agriculture, posing different mitigation challenges and further complicating comparisons with CO 2 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Measuring a fair and ambitious climate agreement using cumulative emissions

Peters

Andrew

Solomon

et al. 2015

Environ. Res. Lett.

122

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Policy makers have called for a 'fair and ambitious' global climate agreement. Scientific constraints, such as the allowable carbon emissions to avoid exceeding a 2°C global warming limit with 66% probability, can help define ambitious approaches to climate targets. However, fairly sharing the mitigation challenge to meet a global target involves human values rather than just scientific facts. We develop a framework based on cumulative emissions of carbon dioxide to compare the consistency of countries' current emission pledges to the ambition of keeping global temperatures below 2°C, and, further, compare two alternative methods of sharing the remaining emission allowance. We focus on the recent pledges and other official statements of the EU, USA, and China. The EU and US pledges are close to a 2°C level of ambition only if the remaining emission allowance is distributed based on current emission shares, which is unlikely to be viewed as 'fair and ambitious' by others who presently emit less. China's stated emissions target also differs from measures of global fairness, owing to emissions that continue to grow into the 2020s. We find that, combined, the EU, US, and Chinese pledges leave little room for other countries to emit CO 2 if a 2°C limit is the objective, essentially requiring all other countries to move towards per capita emissions 7 to 14 times lower than the EU, USA, or China by 2030. We argue that a fair and ambitious agreement for a 2°C limit that would be globally inclusive and effective in the long term will require stronger mitigation than the goals currently proposed. Given such necessary and unprecedented mitigation and the current lack of availability of some key technologies, we suggest a new diplomatic effort directed at ensuring that the necessary technologies become available in the near future.

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Cumulative emissions and climate policy

Cited by 32 publications

References 7 publications

Carbon-concentration and carbon-climate feedbacks in CMIP6 models, and their comparison to CMIP5 models

Carbon-concentration and carbon-climate feedbacks in CMIP6 models, and their comparison to CMIP5 models

Bridging the gap between impact assessment methods and climate science

Measuring a fair and ambitious climate agreement using cumulative emissions

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