Abstract
The international community has set a goal to limit global warming to 2 °C. Limiting global warming to 2 °C is a challenging goal and will entail a dramatic transformation of the global energy system, largely complete by 2040. As part of the work toward this goal, countries have been submitting their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, indicating their emissions reduction commitments through 2025 or 2030, in advance of the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21) in Paris in December 2015. In this paper, we use the Global Change Assessment Model (GCAM) to analyze the near versus long-term energy and economic-cost implications of these INDCs. The INDCs imply near-term actions that reduce the level of mitigation needed in the post-2030 period, particularly when compared with an alternative path in which nations are unable to undertake emissions mitigation until after 2030. We find that the latter case could require up to 2300 GW of premature retirements of fossil fuel power plants and up to 2900 GW of additional low-carbon power capacity installations within a five-year period of 2031–2035. INDCs have the effect of reducing premature retirements and new-capacity installations after 2030 by 50% and 34%, respectively. However, if presently announced INDCs were strengthened to achieve greater near-term emissions mitigation, the 2031–2035 transformation could be tempered to require 84% fewer premature retirements of power generation capacity and 56% fewer new-capacity additions. Our results suggest that the INDCs delivered for COP21 in Paris will have important contributions in reducing the challenges of achieving the goal of limiting global warming to 2 °C.
Highlights
In the IPCC’s fifth assessment report (AR5) [1], Working Group III noted several scenarios corresponding to the 450 ppm CO2 equivalent concentration stabilization
After 2030, the gap in cumulative CO2 emissions from before 2030 as compared with emissions in the 450CO2e scenario will be filled by allocating additional emissions reductions to the latter part of the period
We observed that inter-generational equity was worse in scenario INDC_450CO2e than it was in 450CO2e, mainly because INDC_450CO2e has a limited amount of emission reductions through 2030 and postpones the reduction efforts into the future as compared with 450CO2e
Summary
In the IPCC’s fifth assessment report (AR5) [1], Working Group III noted several scenarios corresponding to the 450 ppm CO2 equivalent concentration stabilization. These scenarios mostly have immediate GHG emissions reductions, and CO2 emissions become zero or negative in the latter half of this century. Each country is to submit an Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) pledge of emission targets for 2025 or 2030. To achieve the 2 °C target, an additional emission reduction of approximately 15 GtCO2eq will be required to fill the gap between the post-INDC trajectory and the least-cost 2 °C scenarios after 2030 [2]
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