Fair Plan 6: Quo Vadis the 80%-Emission-Reduction-By-2050 Plan?

Abstract

In our Fair Plan 5 paper, we compared the CO2 emissions of the 80%-Emission-Reduction-By-2050 (80/50) Plan with the CO2 emissions of our Fair Plan to Safeguard Earth’s Climate. We found that the 80/50 Plan reduced CO2 emissions more rapidly than necessary to achieve the principal objective of the Fair Plan: to keep Global Warming (GW) within the 2℃ (3.6℉) limit adopted by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) “to prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system”. Here, we ask the “What If” question: “What would the GW of the 80/50 Plan be post 2100 if its CO2 emissions post 2100 were kept at their 2100 value?” We find that although the GW of the 80/50 Plan decreases slightly over part of the 21st century, it does not remain constant thereafter. Rather, the GW of the 80/50 Plan begins to increase in 2088, exceeds that of the Fair Plan beginning in 2230, exceeds the 2℃ (3.6℉) limit of the UNFCCC in 2596, and ends the millennium at 2.7℃ (4.8℉). Thus, not only does the 80/50 Plan phase out humanity’s CO2 emissions faster than necessary to fulfill the UNFCCC constraint, it also fails that constraint if its CO2 emissions post 2100 are kept at their 2100 value. Accordingly, we believe that the Fair Plan to Safeguard Earth’s Climate is superior to the 80/50 Plan.