Pathways for balancing CO$_2$ emissions and sinks
Abstract
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.
Domains
Climatology
Origin : Publisher files allowed on an open archive
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