Understanding the origin of Paris Agreement emission uncertainties.

ABSTRACT: The UN Paris Agreement puts in place a legally binding mechanism to increase mitigation action over time. Countries put forward pledges called nationally determined contributions (NDC) whose impact is assessed in global stocktaking exercises. Subsequently, actions can then be strengthened in light of the Paris climate objective: limiting global mean temperature increase to well below 2 °C and pursuing efforts to limit it further to 1.5 °C. However, pledged actions are currently described ambiguously and this complicates the global stocktaking exercise. Here, we systematically explore possible interpretations of NDC assumptions, and show that this results in estimated emissions for 2030 ranging from 47 to 63 GtCO₂e yr^-1. We show that this uncertainty has critical impli

SUBMITTER: Rogelj J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5467211 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature