A multi-model analysis of long-term emissions and warming implications of current mitigation efforts

Ida Sognnaes (), Ajay Gambhir, Dirk-Jan van de Ven, Alexandros Nikas, Annela Anger-Kraavi, Ha Bui, Lorenza Campagnolo, Elisa Delpiazzo, Haris Doukas, Sara Giarola, Neil Grant, Adam Hawkes, Alexandre C. Köberle, Andrey Kolpakov, Shivika Mittal, Jorge Moreno, Sigit Perdana, Joeri Rogelj, Marc Vielle and Glen Peters
Additional contact information
Ida Sognnaes: CICERO Center for International Climate Research
Ajay Gambhir: Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment, Imperial College London
Dirk-Jan van de Ven: Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3)
Alexandros Nikas: National Technical University of Athens
Annela Anger-Kraavi: University of Cambridge
Ha Bui: Cambridge Econometrics
Elisa Delpiazzo: RFF-CMCC European Institute on Economics and the Environment (EIEE)
Haris Doukas: National Technical University of Athens
Sara Giarola: Imperial College London
Neil Grant: Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment, Imperial College London
Adam Hawkes: Imperial College London
Alexandre C. Köberle: Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment, Imperial College London
Andrey Kolpakov: Institute of Economic Forecasting of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Shivika Mittal: Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment, Imperial College London
Jorge Moreno: Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3)
Sigit Perdana: École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)
Joeri Rogelj: Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment, Imperial College London

Nature Climate Change, 2021, vol. 11, issue 12, 1055-1062

Abstract: Abstract Most of the integrated assessment modelling literature focuses on cost-effective pathways towards given temperature goals. Conversely, using seven diverse integrated assessment models, we project global energy CO2 emissions trajectories on the basis of near-term mitigation efforts and two assumptions on how these efforts continue post-2030. Despite finding a wide range of emissions by 2050, nearly all the scenarios have median warming of less than 3 °C in 2100. However, the most optimistic scenario is still insufficient to limit global warming to 2 °C. We furthermore highlight key modelling choices inherent to projecting where emissions are headed. First, emissions are more sensitive to the choice of integrated assessment model than to the assumed mitigation effort, highlighting the importance of heterogeneous model intercomparisons. Differences across models reflect diversity in baseline assumptions and impacts of near-term mitigation efforts. Second, the common practice of using economy-wide carbon prices to represent policy exaggerates carbon capture and storage use compared with explicitly modelling policies.

Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (18)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-021-01206-3 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcli:v:11:y:2021:i:12:d:10.1038_s41558-021-01206-3

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/nclimate/

DOI: 10.1038/s41558-021-01206-3

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Climate Change is currently edited by Bronwyn Wake

More articles in Nature Climate Change from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().