Emission budgets and pathways consistent with limiting warming to 1.5 °C

Journal article

The Paris Agreement has opened debate on whether limiting warming to 1.5°C is compatible with current emission pledges and warming of about 0.9°C from the mid-19th-century to the present decade. We show that limiting cumulative post-2015 CO2 emissions to about 200 GtC would limit post-2015 warming to less than 0.6°C in 66% of Earth System Model members of the CMIP5 ensemble with no mitigation of other climate drivers, increasing to 240GtC with ambitious non-CO2 mitigation. We combine a simple climatecarbon- cycle model with estimated ranges for key climate system properties from the IPCC 5th Assessment Report. Assuming emissions peak and decline to below current levels by 2030 and continue thereafter on a much steeper decline, historically unprecedented but consistent with a standard ambitious mitigation scenario (RCP2.6), gives a likely range of peak warming of 1.2- 2.0°C above the mid-19th-century. If CO2 emissions are continuously adjusted over time to limit 2100 warming to 1.5°C, with ambitious non-CO2 mitigation, net future cumulative CO2 emissions are unlikely to prove less than 250 GtC and unlikely greater than 540GtC. Hence limiting warming to 1.5°C is not yet a geophysical impossibility, but likely requires delivery on strengthened pledges for 2030 followed by challengingly deep and rapid mitigation. Strengthening near-term emissions reductions would hedge against a high climate response or subsequent reduction-rates proving economically, technically or politically unfeasible.

Authors: Millar, R; Fuglestvedt, J; Friedlingstein, P; Rogelj, J; Grubb, M

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Nature Publishing Group
• Journal: Nature Geoscience
• Volume: 10
• Pages: 741–747
• Publication date: 2017-09-01
• Acceptance date: 2017-08-22
• DOI: 10.1038/ngeo3031
• EISSN: 1752-0908
• ISSN: 1752-0894