Next 10 Years Critical for Achieving Climate Change Goals

In order to have a good chance of meeting the limits set by the Paris Agreement, it will be necessary to both reduce greenhouse gas emissions while preserving carbon sinks, with net emissions peaking in the next 10 years, according to a new study.

Carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere can be reduce in two ways -- by cutting our emissions, or by removing it from the atmosphere, for example through plants, the ocean, and soil.

The historic Paris Agreement set a target of limiting future global average temperature increase to well below 2°C and pursue efforts to even further limit the average increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. Yet the timing and details of these efforts were left to individual countries.

In a new study, published in the journal Nature Communications, researchers from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) used a global model of the carbon system that accounts for carbon release and uptake through both natural and anthropogenic activities.

"The study shows that the combined energy and land-use system should deliver zero net anthropogenic emissions well before 2040 in order to assure the attainability of a 1.5°C target by 2100," says IIASA Ecosystems Services and Management Program Director Michael Obersteiner, a study coauthor.

According to the study, fossil fuel consumption would likely need to be reduced to less than 25% of the global energy supply by 2100, compared to 95% today.  At the same time, land use change, such as deforestation, must be decreased.  This would lead to a 42% decrease in cumulative emissions by the end of the century compared to a business as usual scenario.

"This study gives a broad accounting of the carbon dioxide in our atmosphere, where it comes from and where it goes.  We take into account not just emissions from fossil fuels, but also agriculture, land use, food production, bioenergy, and carbon uptake by natural ecosystems," explains World Bank consultant Brian Walsh, who led the study while working as an IIASA researcher.

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