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| Titel |
Reconciling cumulative and short-term targets for carbon emissions |
| VerfasserIn |
Niel Bowerman, David Frame, Chris Huntingford, Jason Lowe, Myles Allen |
| Konferenz |
EGU General Assembly 2010
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| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
Englisch
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| Digitales Dokument |
PDF |
| Erschienen |
In: GRA - Volume 12 (2010) |
| Datensatznummer |
250043149
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| Zusammenfassung |
| Recent papers have argued that avoiding the potentially dangerous anthropogenic climate
change resulting from more than 2Ë C of global average warming (since pre-industrial times)
will require climate policies to limit cumulative emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2). In
particular, such analyses demonstrate tight correlations between cumulative emissions and
peak warming, independent of the timing of emissions. Several different approaches to
framing a cumulative emissions target have been put forward, and the relevance of such
long-term limits to short-term climate-change policy has also been disputed. One mechanism
for relating cumulative emission targets to short-term policies is to assess the emission
trajectories required to ensure we do not reach the date at which any given cumulative
limit is projected to be breached. We consider the implications of this approach to
framing emission targets in the context of a cumulative limit of one trillion tonnes of
carbon.
A second objection to using cumulative emissions targets in isolation is that the feasibility
and cost of adapting to future climate change will also depend strongly on the rate, not just
the magnitude, of warming. Here we show that, while cumulative CO2 emissions determine
the peak resultant warming, it is the peak rate of emission that dictates the peak rate of
CO2-induced global warming. We therefore suggest that limiting damages due to
CO2-induced warming requires policies to limit both cumulative emissions and peak
emission rates. |
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