Pathways for balancing CO2 emissions and sinks

• Published in: Nature communications Vol. 8; no. 1; pp. 14856 - 12
• Main Authors: Walsh, Brian, Ciais, Philippe, Janssens, Ivan A., Peñuelas, Josep, Riahi, Keywan, Rydzak, Felicjan, van Vuuren, Detlef P., Obersteiner, Michael
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 13.04.2017; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 704/106/694/1108; 704/172/4081; 704/844/682; Anthropogenic factors; Carbon dioxide emissions; Carbon sequestration; Climate change; Decarbonization; Emissions; Energy consumption; Energy industry; Fossil fuels; Humanities and Social Sciences; Land use; multidisciplinary; Paris Agreement; Ratios; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Temperature; Netherlands; Spain
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/ncomms14856

In December 2015 in Paris, leaders committed to achieve global, net decarbonization of human activities before 2100. This achievement would halt and even reverse anthropogenic climate change through the net removal of carbon from the atmosphere. However, the Paris documents contain few specific prescriptions for emissions mitigation, leaving various countries to pursue their own agendas. In this analysis, we project energy and land-use emissions mitigation pathways through 2100, subject to best-available parameterization of carbon-climate feedbacks and interdependencies. We find that, barring unforeseen and transformative technological advancement, anthropogenic emissions need to peak within the next 10 years, to maintain realistic pathways to meeting the COP21 emissions and warming targets. Fossil fuel consumption will probably need to be reduced below a quarter of primary energy supply by 2100 and the allowable consumption rate drops even further if negative emissions technologies remain technologically or economically unfeasible at the global scale. COP21 led to a global commitment to decarbonization before 2100 to combat climate change, but leaves the timing and scale of mitigation efforts to individual countries. Here, the authors show that global carbon emissions need to peak within a decade to maintain realistic pathways for achieving the Paris Agreement.