Impact of short-lived non-CO2 mitigation on carbon budgets for stabilizing global warming

Limiting global warming to any level requires limiting the total amount of CO _2 emissions, or staying within a CO _2 budget. Here we assess how emissions from short-lived non-CO _2 species like methane, hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), black-carbon, and sulphates influence these CO _2 budgets. Our defaul...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Joeri Rogelj, Malte Meinshausen, Michiel Schaeffer, Reto Knutti, Keywan Riahi
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: IOP Publishing 2015-01-01
Series:Environmental Research Letters
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/10/7/075001
Description
Summary:Limiting global warming to any level requires limiting the total amount of CO _2 emissions, or staying within a CO _2 budget. Here we assess how emissions from short-lived non-CO _2 species like methane, hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), black-carbon, and sulphates influence these CO _2 budgets. Our default case, which assumes mitigation in all sectors and of all gases, results in a CO _2 budget between 2011–2100 of 340 PgC for a >66% chance of staying below 2°C, consistent with the assessment of the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Extreme variations of air-pollutant emissions from black-carbon and sulphates influence this budget by about ±5%. In the hypothetical case of no methane or HFCs mitigation—which is unlikely when CO _2 is stringently reduced—the budgets would be much smaller (40% or up to 60%, respectively). However, assuming very stringent CH _4 mitigation as a sensitivity case, CO _2 budgets could be 25% higher. A limit on cumulative CO _2 emissions remains critical for temperature targets. Even a 25% higher CO _2 budget still means peaking global emissions in the next two decades, and achieving net zero CO _2 emissions during the third quarter of the 21st century. The leverage we have to affect the CO _2 budget by targeting non-CO _2 diminishes strongly along with CO _2 mitigation, because these are partly linked through economic and technological factors.
ISSN:1748-9326