Earth:Climate target

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Short description: Policy for emissions reductions
Countries by intended year of climate neutrality.
  Already carbon neutral or negative
  2030
  2035
  2040
  2045
  2050
  2053
  2060
  2070
  Unknown or undeclared
When countries plan a ban on new fossil fuel vehiclas.
  2020s
  2030s
  2040s
  2050s
Emission budget and necessary emission reduction pathways to meet the two-degree target agreed in Paris Agreement without negative emissions, depending on the emission peak[1]
World map for Sustainable Development Goal 13 Indicator 13.A.1: Green Climate Fund mobilization of $100 billion, 2018.
Share of energy consumption from renewable sources for EU and EEA countries 2020 and 2021, compared to the national targets for 2020. EU28 (including United Kingdom) pledged an average of 20 percent renewable energy for 2020, and EU27 reached 22 percent.

A climate target, climate goal or climate pledge is a measurable long-term commitment for climate policy and energy policy with the aim of limiting the climate change. Researchers within, among others, the UN climate panel have identified probable consequences of global warming for people and nature at different levels of warming. Based on this, politicians in a large number of countries have agreed on temperature targets for warming, which is the basis for scientifically calculated carbon budgets and ways to achieve these targets. This in turn forms the basis for politically decided global and national emission targets for greenhouse gases, targets for fossil-free energy production and efficient energy use, and for the extent of planned measures for climate change mitigation and adaptation.

At least 164 countries have implemented climate targets in their national climate legislation. [2]

Global climate targets

Countries' targets for when new sales of fossil fuel vehicles should be prohibited.
  2020s
  2030s
  2040s
  2050s
Emissions budget and necessary emission reduction paths to meet the Paris Agreement's 1.5-degree target (solid) and 2-degree target (dashed), depending on when the annual amount of emissions turns downward.
Number of parties in multilateral environmental agreements.[3]

Global climate targets are goals that a large number of countries have agreed upon, including at United Nations Climate Change conferences (COP). Targets often referred to are:

  • The Climate Convention – an international environmental treaty adopted at the Rio Conference in Brazil in 1992.
  • Targets for 2008 to 2012: In the Kyoto Protocol of 1997, 160 countries committed to reducing their greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 5.2 percent over the period 2008 to 2012 compared to 1990 levels.[4]
  • Targets for 2013 to 2020: In the Doha amendment to the Kyoto Protocol, slightly fewer I countries committed to reducing their emissions by at least 18 percent in the period 2013 to 2020 compared to 1990.
  • Targets for 2030:
    • 105 countries promised deforestation at the COP26 in 2021 to end deforestation to 2030.[5]
    • 105 countries[6] signed in connection with COP26 and COP27 a pledge to reduce methane emissions by 30 percent by 2030 compared to 2020.[7]
  • Targets for 2100:
    • United Nations Climate Change Conference 2009 proposed a 2 degree climate target for global warming until the year 2100.
    • The Paris Agreement (United Nations Climate Change Agreement) of 2015 with countries' non-binding climate pledges, formally known as NDCs, and before the agreement's ratification for INDCs (Intended Nationally Determined Contributions), to keep global warming well below the 2-degree target by 2100, and that further efforts should be made towards a 1.5-degree target.
  • Goal number 13 in the global goals for sustainable development within the Agenda 2030 deals with climate action, and was decided by the UN General Assembly in 2015. Among other things, it includes the UN Green Climate Fund.
Mobilization of the green climate fund with USD 100 billion annually constitutes indicator 13.A.1 of the global goals. By 2022, countries had pledged $10.3 billion to the fund.

Calculation of Emissions Targets

An emissions target or greenhouse gas emissions reduction target is a central policy instrument of international greenhouse gas emissions reduction politics and a key pillar of climate policy.[8][9][10][11][12][13] They typically include heavy consideration of emissions budgets, which are calculated using rate of warming per standard emission of carbon dioxide, a historic baseline temperature, a desired level of confidence and a target global average temperature to stay below.[14]

An "emissions target" may be distinguished from an emissions budget, as an emissions target may be internationally or nationally set in accordance with objectives other than a specific global temperature. This includes targets created for their political palatability, rather than budgets scientifically determined to meet a specific temperature target.[15][16]

A country's determination of emissions targets is based on careful consideration of pledged NDCs (nationally determined contributions), economic and social feasibility, and political palatability.[17] Carbon budgets can provide political entities with knowledge of how much carbon can be emitted before likely reaching a certain temperature threshold, but specific emissions targets take more into account. The exact way these targets are determined varies widely from country to country. Variation in emissions targets and time to complete them depends on factors such as accounting of land-use emissions, afforestation capacity of a country, and a countries transport emissions.[18] Importantly, emissions targets also depend on their hypothesized reception.

Many emissions pathways, budgets and targets also rely on the implementation of negative emissions technology.[19] These currently undeveloped technologies are predicted to pull net emissions down even as source emissions are not reduced.

Effectiveness of Targets

Many countries' emissions targets are above the scientifically calculated allowable emissions to remain below a certain temperature threshold.[20][21] In 2015, many countries pledged NDCs to limit the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels.[22] Many of the largest emitters of GHGs, however, are on track to push global average temperature to as much as 4 °C.[20] Some of these projections contradict agreements made in the 2015 Paris Agreement, meaning countries are not keeping to their pledged NDCs.

In addition, it is uncertain how effective many emissions targets and accompanying policies really are.[23] For example, with countries that have high consumption-based carbon emissions, strictly enforced, aligned and coordinated international policy measures determine the effectiveness of targets. In addition, many ambitious policies are proposed and passed but are not practically enforced or regulated, or have unintended consequences. China's ETS (emissions trading scheme), while seeming to have an effect on reducing production-based emissions also promoted outsourcing of emissions contributing to a further imbalance of carbon transfer among China's different provinces.[24] The ETS evaluation also did not account for exported consumption-based emissions.

Many countries aim to reach net zero emissions in the next few decades.[18] In order to reach this goal however, there must be a radical shift in energy infrastructure.[25] For example, in the United States, political entities are attempting to switch away from coal and oil based energy by replacing plants with natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) power plants. [26] Other countries like the Netherlands were obligated by the District Court of Hague to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 25% by 2020. The Court has passed other innovations (Milieudefensie v. Royal Dutch Shell) to reduce dioxide emissions by 45% by 2030.[27]However many find this transition to not be significant enough to reach net-zero emissions.[26][28] More significant changes, for example using biomass energy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) are suggested as a viable option to transition to net-zero emissions countries.[29][30]

See also

References

  1. Christiana Figueres u. a. (2017), "Three years to safeguard our climate" (in German), Nature 546 (7660): pp. 593–595, doi:10.1038/546593a, PMID 28661507, Bibcode2017Natur.546..593F 
  2. harrisson, thomas (2017-05-11). "Mapped: Climate change laws around the world" (in en). https://www.carbonbrief.org/mapped-climate-change-laws-around-world/. 
  3. Ritchie, Roser, Mispy, Ortiz-Ospina. "Measuring progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals." (SDG 13) SDG-Tracker.org, website (2018).
  4. "Industrialized countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 5.2%". 1997-12-11. https://unfccc.int/cop3/fccc/info/indust.htm. 
  5. Messetchkova, Iana (2021-11-02). "Glasgow Leaders' Declaration on Forests and Land Use". https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukgwa/20230418175226/https://ukcop26.org/glasgow-leaders-declaration-on-forests-and-land-use/. 
  6. Lai, Olivia (2021-11-03). "105 Countries Join Global Methane Pledge to Slash Methane Emissions 30% by 2030" (in en-UK). https://earth.org/105-countries-join-global-methane-pledge-to-slash-methane-emissions-30-by-2030/. 
  7. "Homepage | Global Methane Pledge". https://www.globalmethanepledge.org/#pledges. 
  8. Meinshausen, Malte; Meinshausen, Nicolai; Hare, William; Raper, Sarah C. B.; Frieler, Katja; Knutti, Reto; Frame, David J.; Allen, Myles R. (30 April 2009). "Greenhouse-gas emission targets for limiting global warming to 2 °C". Nature 458 (7242): 1158–1162. doi:10.1038/nature08017. ISSN 1476-4687. PMID 19407799. Bibcode2009Natur.458.1158M. 
  9. Matthews, H. Damon; Zickfeld, Kirsten; Knutti, Reto; Allen, Myles R. (2018). "Focus on cumulative emissions, global carbon budgets and the implications for climate mitigation targets". Environmental Research Letters 13 (1): 010201. doi:10.1088/1748-9326/aa98c9. ISSN 1748-9326. Bibcode2018ERL....13a0201D. 
  10. Raupach, Michael R.; Davis, Steven J.; Peters, Glen P.; Andrew, Robbie M.; Canadell, Josep G.; Ciais, Philippe; Friedlingstein, Pierre; Jotzo, Frank et al. (21 September 2014). "Sharing a quota on cumulative carbon emissions". Nature Climate Change 4 (10): 873–879. doi:10.1038/nclimate2384. ISSN 1758-6798. Bibcode2014NatCC...4..873R. http://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/1kv3p879. 
  11. Friedlingstein, P., Andrew, R. M., Rogelj, J., Peters, G. P., Canadell, J. G., Knutti, R., ... & Le Quéré, C. (2014). Persistent growth of CO2 emissions and implications for reaching climate targets. Nature geoscience, 7(10), 709.
  12. Jackson, Tim. "2050 is too late – we must drastically cut emissions much sooner" (in en). http://theconversation.com/2050-is-too-late-we-must-drastically-cut-emissions-much-sooner-121512. 
  13. Zickfeld, K.; Arora, V. K.; Gillett, N. P. (2012-03-01). "Is the climate response to CO2 emissions path dependent?". Geophysical Research Letters 39 (5): L05703. doi:10.1029/2011gl050205. ISSN 1944-8007. Bibcode2012GeoRL..39.5703Z. 
  14. Rogelj, Joeri; Forster, Piers M.; Kriegler, Elmar; Smith, Christopher J.; Séférian, Roland (17 July 2019). "Estimating and tracking the remaining carbon budget for stringent climate targets". Nature 571 (7765): 335–342. doi:10.1038/s41586-019-1368-z. PMID 31316194. Bibcode2019Natur.571..335R. 
  15. Babiker, Mustafa H.; Eckaus, Richard S. (2002-09-01). "Rethinking the Kyoto Emissions Targets". Climatic Change 54 (4): 399–414. doi:10.1023/A:1016139500611. ISSN 0165-0009. 
  16. Zickfeld, Kirsten; Eby, Michael; Matthews, H. Damon; Weaver, Andrew J. (2009-09-22). "Setting cumulative emissions targets to reduce the risk of dangerous climate change". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 106 (38): 16129–16134. doi:10.1073/pnas.0805800106. ISSN 0027-8424. PMID 19706489. 
  17. Babiker, Mustafa H.; Eckaus, Richard S. (2002). "Rethinking the Kyoto Emissions Targets". Climatic Change 54 (4): 399–414. doi:10.1023/A:1016139500611. http://link.springer.com/10.1023/A:1016139500611. 
  18. 18.0 18.1 van Soest, Heleen L.; den Elzen, Michel G. J.; van Vuuren, Detlef P. (2021-04-09). "Net-zero emission targets for major emitting countries consistent with the Paris Agreement". Nature Communications 12 (1): 2140. doi:10.1038/s41467-021-22294-x. ISSN 2041-1723. PMID 33837206. Bibcode2021NatCo..12.2140V. 
  19. Johansson, Daniel J A; Azar, Christian; Lehtveer, Mariliis; Peters, Glen P (2020-12-05). "The role of negative carbon emissions in reaching the Paris climate targets: The impact of target formulation in integrated assessment models". Environmental Research Letters 15 (12): 124024. doi:10.1088/1748-9326/abc3f0. ISSN 1748-9326. Bibcode2020ERL....15l4024J. 
  20. 20.0 20.1 Korppoo, Anna; Kokorin, Alexey (2017-02-17). "Russia's 2020 GHG emissions target: Emission trends and implementation" (in en). Climate Policy 17 (2): 113–130. doi:10.1080/14693062.2015.1075373. ISSN 1469-3062. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14693062.2015.1075373. 
  21. "Home | Climate Action Tracker". https://climateactiontracker.org/. 
  22. "Paris Agreement, FCCC/CP/2015/L.9/Rev.1". 12 December 2015. http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2015/cop21/eng/l09r01.pdf. 
  23. Nabernegg, Stefan; Bednar-Friedl, Birgit; Muñoz, Pablo; Titz, Michaela; Vogel, Johanna (April 2019). "National Policies for Global Emission Reductions: Effectiveness of Carbon Emission Reductions in International Supply Chains" (in en). Ecological Economics 158: 146–157. doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2018.12.006. 
  24. Gao, Yuning; Li, Meng; Xue, Jinjun; Liu, Yu (August 2020). "Evaluation of effectiveness of China's carbon emissions trading scheme in carbon mitigation" (in en). Energy Economics 90: 104872. doi:10.1016/j.eneco.2020.104872. https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0140988320302127. 
  25. Pye, S.; Broad, O.; Bataille, C.; Brockway, P.; Daly, H. E.; Freeman, R.; Gambhir, A.; Geden, O. et al. (2021-02-07). "Modelling net-zero emissions energy systems requires a change in approach" (in en). Climate Policy 21 (2): 222–231. doi:10.1080/14693062.2020.1824891. ISSN 1469-3062. 
  26. 26.0 26.1 Sproul, Evan; Barlow, Jay; Quinn, Jason C. (2020-12-01). "Time-Resolved Cost Analysis of Natural Gas Power Plant Conversion to Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage to Support Net-Zero Emissions" (in en). Environmental Science & Technology 54 (23): 15338–15346. doi:10.1021/acs.est.0c04041. ISSN 0013-936X. PMID 33183006. Bibcode2020EnST...5415338S. https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.0c04041. 
  27. Benoit, Mayer (July 2022). "The Duty of Care of Fossil-Fuel Producers for Climate Change Mitigation: Milieudefensie v. Royal Dutch Shell District Court of The Hague (The Netherlands)". ProQuest 11. doi:10.1017/S2047102522000103. ProQuest 2688520401. 
  28. Zhang, Xiaochun; Myhrvold, Nathan P.; Hausfather, Zeke; Caldeira, Ken (April 2016). "Climate benefits of natural gas as a bridge fuel and potential delay of near-zero energy systems" (in en). Applied Energy 167: 317–322. doi:10.1016/j.apenergy.2015.10.016. 
  29. Wang, Rui; Chang, Shiyan; Cui, Xueqin; Li, Jin; Ma, Linwei; Kumar, Amit; Nie, Yaoyu; Cai, Wenjia (January 2021). "Retrofitting coal‐fired power plants with biomass co‐firing and carbon capture and storage for net zero carbon emission: A plant‐by‐plant assessment framework" (in en). GCB Bioenergy 13 (1): 143–160. doi:10.1111/gcbb.12756. ISSN 1757-1693. 
  30. Tokimatsu, Koji; Yasuoka, Rieko; Nishio, Masahiro (January 2017). "Global zero emissions scenarios: The role of biomass energy with carbon capture and storage by forested land use" (in en). Applied Energy 185: 1899–1906. doi:10.1016/j.apenergy.2015.11.077. https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0306261915015275.