Meeting the EU 2°C climate target: global and regional emission implications

Michel den Elzen and Malte Meinshausen

Climate Policy, 2006, vol. 6, issue 5, 545-564

Abstract: This article presents a set of multi-gas emission pathways for different CO 2 -equivalent concentration stabilization levels, i.e. 400, 450, 500 and 550 ppm CO 2 -equivalent, along with an analysis of their global and regional reduction implications and implied probability of achieving the EU climate target of 2°C. For achieving the 2°C target with a probability of more than 60%, greenhouse gas concentrations need to be stabilized at 450 ppm CO 2 -equivalent or below, if the 90% uncertainty range for climate sensitivity is believed to be 1.5-4.5°C. A stabilization at 450 ppm CO 2 -equivalent or below (400 ppm) requires global emissions to peak around 2015, followed by substantial overall reductions of as much as 25% (45% for 400 ppm) compared to 1990 levels in 2050. In 2020, Annex I emissions need to be approximately 15% (30%) below 1990 levels, and non-Annex I emissions also need to be reduced by 15-20% compared to their baseline emissions. A further delay in peaking of global emissions by 10 years doubles maximum reduction rates to about 5% per year, and very probably leads to high costs. In order to keep the option open of stabilizing at 400 and 450 ppm CO 2 -equivalent, the USA and major advanced non-Annex I countries will have to participate in the reductions within the next 10-15 years.

Date: 2006
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/14693062.2006.9685620 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:taf:tcpoxx:v:6:y:2006:i:5:p:545-564

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/tcpo20

DOI: 10.1080/14693062.2006.9685620

Access Statistics for this article

Climate Policy is currently edited by Professor Michael Grubb

More articles in Climate Policy from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().