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Taking some heat off the NDCs? The limited potential of additional short-lived climate forcers’ mitigation
2019, Harmsen, Mathijs, Fricko, Oliver, Hilaire, Jérôme, van Vuuren, Detlef P., Drouet, Laurent, Durand-Lasserve, Olivier, Fujimori, Shinichiro, Keramidas, Kimon, Klimont, Zbigniew, Luderer, Gunnar, Aleluia Reis, Lara, Riahi, Keywan, Sano, Fuminori, Smith, Steven J.
Several studies have shown that the greenhouse gas reduction resulting from the current nationally determined contributions (NDCs) will not be enough to meet the overall targets of the Paris Climate Agreement. It has been suggested that more ambition mitigations of short-lived climate forcer (SLCF) emissions could potentially be a way to reduce the risk of overshooting the 1.5 or 2 °C target in a cost-effective way. In this study, we employ eight state-of-the-art integrated assessment models (IAMs) to examine the global temperature effects of ambitious reductions of methane, black and organic carbon, and hydrofluorocarbon emissions. The SLCFs measures considered are found to add significantly to the effect of the NDCs on short-term global mean temperature (GMT) (in the year 2040: − 0.03 to − 0.15 °C) and on reducing the short-term rate-of-change (by − 2 to 15%), but only a small effect on reducing the maximum temperature change before 2100. This, because later in the century under assumed ambitious climate policy, SLCF mitigation is maximized, either directly or indirectly due to changes in the energy system. All three SLCF groups can contribute to achieving GMT changes. © 2019, The Author(s).
Freshwater resources under success and failure of the Paris climate agreement
2019, Heinke, Jens, Müller, Christoph, Lannerstad, Mats, Gerten, Dieter, Lucht, Wolfgang
Population growth will in many regions increase the pressure on water resources and likely increase the number of people affected by water scarcity. In parallel, global warming causes hydrological changes which will affect freshwater supply for human use in many regions. This study estimates the exposure of future population to severe hydrological changes relevant from a freshwater resource perspective at different levels of global mean temperature rise above pre-industrial level (ΔTglob). The analysis is complemented by an assessment of water scarcity that would occur without additional climate change due to population change alone; this is done to identify the population groups that are faced with particularly high adaptation challenges. The results are analysed in the context of success and failure of implementing the Paris Agreement to evaluate how climate mitigation can reduce the future number of people exposed to severe hydrological change. The results show that without climate mitigation efforts, in the year 2100 about 4.9 billion people in the SSP2 population scenario would more likely than not be exposed to severe hydrological change, and about 2.1 billion of them would be faced with particularly high adaptation challenges due to already prevailing water scarcity. Limiting warming to 2 °C by a successful implementation of the Paris Agreement would strongly reduce these numbers to 615 million and 290 million, respectively. At the regional scale, substantial water-related risks remain at 2 °C, with more than 12% of the population exposed to severe hydrological change and high adaptation challenges in Latin America and the Middle East and north Africa region. Constraining δTglob to 1.5 °C would limit this share to about 5% in these regions. ©2019 Author(s).