Questionable at best: why links between mitigation by single actors and global temperature goals must be made more robust

Abstract

ABSTRACT In the academic and grey literature, near- and mid-term mitigation trajectories by single actors (countries, firms, cities or regions) are often labelled with terms including long-term temperature goals (e.g. 1.5°C scenario). Yet direct links between single actors’ mitigation efforts in the near- to mid-term and global temperature goals in the long-term are neither consistent nor defensible without making important additional assumptions about space, time and equity. We argue that such labelling should be avoided. If labelling has to be used, these assumptions should be transparently stated, to bridge spatial and temporal scales, and to make explicit ethical judgments about the distribution of mitigation efforts.