EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Achieving net-zero emissions through the reframing of UK national targets in the post-Paris Agreement era

Steve Pye (), Francis G. N. Li, James Price and Birgit Fais
Additional contact information
Steve Pye: UCL Energy Institute, University College London
Francis G. N. Li: UCL Energy Institute, University College London
James Price: UCL Energy Institute, University College London
Birgit Fais: UCL Energy Institute, University College London

Nature Energy, 2017, vol. 2, issue 3, 1-7

Abstract: Abstract The Paris Agreement provides an international framework aimed at limiting average global temperature rise to well below 2 ∘C, implemented through actions determined at the national level. As the Agreement necessitates a ‘net-zero’ emissions energy system by 2100, decarbonization analyses in support of national climate policy should consider the post-2050 period. Focusing solely on mitigation objectives for 2030 or 2050 could lead to blindsiding of the challenge, inadequate ambition in the near term, and poor investment choices in energy infrastructure. Here we show, using the UK as an example, that even an ambitious climate policy is likely to fall short of the challenge of net-zero, and that analysis of the post-2050 period is therefore critical. We find that the analysis of detailed, longer-term national pathways that achieve net-zero is important for future reassessment of ambition under nationally determined contributions (NDCs).

Date: 2017
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (31)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nenergy201724 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:natene:v:2:y:2017:i:3:d:10.1038_nenergy.2017.24

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

DOI: 10.1038/nenergy.2017.24

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Energy is currently edited by Fouad Khan

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

 
Page updated 2025-03-19
Handle: RePEc:nat:natene:v:2:y:2017:i:3:d:10.1038_nenergy.2017.24