Three Decades of Climate Mitigation: Why Haven't We Bent the Global Emissions Curve?

Isak Stoddard,Sonja Klinsky,Clive L Spash,Claire Hoolohan,Mariama Williams,Eva Lövbrand,Niclas Hällström,Naghmeh Nasiritousi,Kevin Anderson,Peter Newell,Joanna Depledge,Keri Facer,Wim Carton,Martin Hultman,Sivan Kartha,Andy Stirling,Glen P Peters,Clair Gough,Youba Sokona,Matthew Stilwell,Magdalena Kuchler,Stuart Capstick,Frédéric Hache

doi:10.1146/annurev-environ-012220-011104

Abstract

Despite three decades of political efforts and a wealth of research on the causes and catastrophic impacts of climate change, global carbon dioxide emissions have continued to rise and are 60% higher today than they were in 1990. Exploring this rise through nine thematic lenses—covering issues of climate governance, the fossil fuel industry, geopolitics, economics, mitigation modeling, energy systems, inequity, lifestyles, and social imaginaries—draws out multifaceted reasons for our collective failure to bend the global emissions curve. However, a common thread that emerges across the reviewed literature is the central role of power, manifest in many forms, from a dogmatic political-economic hegemony and influential vested interests to narrow techno-economic mindsets and ideologies of control. Synthesizing the various impediments to mitigation reveals how delivering on the commitments enshrined in the Paris Agreement now requires an urgent and unprecedented transformation away from today's carbon- and energy-intensive development paradigm.

Highlights

THREE DECADES OF INSUFFICIENT CLIMATE ACTIONDrawing on an already long-standing and growing body of research, the first assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was published in 1990
The key landmarks have been the adoption of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1992, followed by the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement in 1997 and 2015, respectively
The lenses offer different views that at times are complementary, overlapping, contrasting, and occasionally contradictory. This exercise reveals a series of insights as to why we have failed to bend the global emissions curve, as well as critical questions for further research and action on climate change

Summary

Introduction

THREE DECADES OF INSUFFICIENT CLIMATE ACTIONDrawing on an already long-standing and growing body of research, the first assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was published in 1990. The key landmarks have been the adoption of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1992, followed by the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement in 1997 and 2015, respectively. Add to this hundreds of formal decisions, countless frameworks, action plans and work programs, the establishment of international financing mechanisms (such as the Global Environment Facility and Green Climate Fund), a near continuous round of international meetings, and a proliferation of efforts at the regional, national, and local levels, and one would have expected to see significant levels of progress.

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