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2°C and SDGs: United they stand, divided they fall?
2016, von Stechow, Christoph, Minx, Jan C., Riahi, Keywan, Jewell, Jessica, McCollum, David L., Callaghan, Max W., Bertram, Christoph, Luderer, Gunnar, Baiocchi, Giovanni
The adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the new international climate treaty could put 2015 into the history books as a defining year for setting human development on a more sustainable pathway. The global climate policy and SDG agendas are highly interconnected: the way that the climate problem is addressed strongly affects the prospects of meeting numerous other SDGs and vice versa. Drawing on existing scenario results from a recent energy-economy-climate model inter-comparison project, this letter analyses these synergies and (risk) trade-offs of alternative 2 °C pathways across indicators relevant for energy-related SDGs and sustainable energy objectives. We find that limiting the availability of key mitigation technologies yields some co-benefits and decreases risks specific to these technologies but greatly increases many others. Fewer synergies and substantial trade-offs across SDGs are locked into the system for weak short-term climate policies that are broadly in line with current Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs), particularly when combined with constraints on technologies. Lowering energy demand growth is key to managing these trade-offs and creating synergies across multiple energy-related SD dimensions. We argue that SD considerations are central for choosing socially acceptable 2 °C pathways: the prospects of meeting other SDGs need not dwindle and can even be enhanced for some goals if appropriate climate policy choices are made. Progress on the climate policy and SDG agendas should therefore be tracked within a unified framework.
Mitigation choices impact carbon budget size compatible with low temperature goals
2015, Rogelj, Joeri, Reisinger, Andy, McCollum, David L., Knutti, Reto, Riahi, Keywan, Meinshausen, Malte
Global-mean temperature increase is roughly proportional to cumulative emissions of carbon-dioxide (CO2). Limiting global warming to any level thus implies a finite CO2 budget. Due to geophysical uncertainties, the size of such budgets can only be expressed in probabilistic terms and is further influenced by non-CO2 emissions. We here explore how societal choices related to energy demand and specific mitigation options influence the size of carbon budgets for meeting a given temperature objective. We find that choices that exclude specific CO2 mitigation technologies (like Carbon Capture and Storage) result in greater costs, smaller compatible CO2 budgets until 2050, but larger CO2 budgets until 2100. Vice versa, choices that lead to a larger CO2 mitigation potential result in CO2 budgets until 2100 that are smaller but can be met at lower costs. In most cases, these budget variations can be explained by the amount of non-CO2 mitigation that is carried out in conjunction with CO2, and associated global carbon prices that also drive mitigation of non-CO2 gases. Budget variations are of the order of 10% around their central value. In all cases, limiting warming to below 2 °C thus still implies that CO2 emissions need to be reduced rapidly in the coming decades.
Locked into Copenhagen pledges - Implications of short-term emission targets for the cost and feasibility of long-term climate goals
2013, Riahi, Keywan, Kriegler, Elmar, Johnson, Nils, Bertram, Christoph, den Elzen, Michel, Eom, Jiyong, Schaeffer, Michiel, Edmonds, Jae, Isaac, Morna, Krey, Volker, Longden, Thomas, Luderer, Gunnar, Méjean, Aurélie, McCollum, David L., Mima, Silvana, Turton, Hal, van Vuuren, Detlef P., Wada, Kenichi, Bosetti, Valentina, Capros, Pantelis, Criqui, Patrick, Hamdi-Cherif, Meriem, Kainuma, Mikiko, Edenhofer, Ottmar
This paper provides an overview of the AMPERE modeling comparison project with focus on the implications of near-term policies for the costs and attainability of long-term climate objectives. Nine modeling teams participated in the project to explore the consequences of global emissions following the proposed policy stringency of the national pledges from the Copenhagen Accord and Cancún Agreements to 2030. Specific features compared to earlier assessments are the explicit consideration of near-term 2030 emission targets as well as the systematic sensitivity analysis for the availability and potential of mitigation technologies. Our estimates show that a 2030 mitigation effort comparable to the pledges would result in a further “lock-in” of the energy system into fossil fuels and thus impede the required energy transformation to reach low greenhouse-gas stabilization levels (450 ppm CO2e). Major implications include significant increases in mitigation costs, increased risk that low stabilization targets become unattainable, and reduced chances of staying below the proposed temperature change target of 2 °C in case of overshoot. With respect to technologies, we find that following the pledge pathways to 2030 would narrow policy choices, and increases the risks that some currently optional technologies, such as carbon capture and storage (CCS) or the large-scale deployment of bioenergy, will become “a must” by 2030.