• Energy Research

Five equitable approaches to mitigation are investigated: the authors find that most developing countries are more ambitious than the average, whilst if developed nations and China adopted the average of the approaches the gap between INDCs and a 2 °C pathway would narrow.

In the Paris Agreement countries have agreed to act together to hold global warming well below 2°C over preindustrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit warming to 1.5°C. To assess if the world is on track to meet this long‐term temperature goal, countries' pledged emissions reductions (Nationally Determined Contributions, NDCs) need to be analyzed for their implied warming. Several research groups and nongovernmental organizations have estimated this warming and arrived at very different results but have invariably concluded that the current pledges are inadequate to hold warming below 2°C, let alone 1.5°C. In this paper we analyze different methods to estimate 2100 global mean temperature rise implied by countries' NDCs, which often only specify commitments until 2030. We present different methods to extend near‐term emissions pathways that have been developed by the authors or used by different research groups and nongovernmental organizations to estimate 21st century warming consequences of Paris Agreement commitments. The abilities of these methods to project both low and high warming scenarios in line with the scenario literature is assessed. We find that the simpler methods are not suitable for temperature projections while more complex methods can produce results consistent with the energy and economic scenario literature. We further find that some methods can have a strong high or low temperature bias depending on parameter choices. The choice of methods to evaluate the consistency of aggregated NDC commitments is very important for reviewing progress toward the Paris Agreement's long‐term temperature goal.

This study compares greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions projections in 2030 under current policies and those under 2030 mitigation targets for nine key non-G20 countries, that collectively account for about 5 % of global total emissions today. These include the four largest non-G20 fossil CO2 emitting Parties to the UN climate convention pre- Paris Agreement (Iran, Kazakhstan, Thailand and Ukraine) and one of the largest land-use GHG emitters in the world (Democratic Republic of the Congo). Other countries assessed include major economies in their respective regions (Chile, Colombia, Morocco and the Philippines). In addition to economy-wide GHG emissions projections, we also assessed the projected GHG emissions peak year and the progression of per capita GHG emissions up to 2030. Our GHG emissions projections are also compared with previous studies. On economy-wide GHG emissions, Colombia, Iran, Morocco, and Ukraine were projected to likely meet or significantly overachieve their unconditional 2030 targets with existing policies, while DRC and Thailand would come very close to their targets. Kazakhstan and the Philippines would need to strengthen their action to meet their targets, while Chile recently raised its 2030 target ambition. Only Colombia and Ukraine are projected to have peaked their emissions by 2030. Per capita GHG emissions excluding land-use under current policies were projected to increase in all countries from 2010 levels by 8 % to over 40 % depending on the country. While the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on 2030 emissions is highly uncertain, our assessment on the target achievement would not change for most countries when the emission reductions estimated for 2020 in the literature were assumed to remain in 2030. The findings of this study highlight the importance of enhanced and frequent progress-tracking of climate action of major emitters outside G20, as is currently done for G20 members, to ensure that the global collective progress will become aligned with the pathways toward Paris climate goals.

National net zero emission targets could, if fully implemented, reduce best estimates of projected global average temperature increase to 2.0–2.4 °C by 2100, bringing the Paris Agreement temperature goal within reach. A total of 131 countries are discussing, have announced or have adopted net zero targets, covering 72% of global emissions. These targets could substantially lower projected warming as compared to currently implemented policies (2.9–3.2 °C) or pledges submitted to the Paris Agreement (2.4–2.9 °C). Current pledges for emissions cuts are insufficient to meet the Paris Agreement temperature goal. The wave of net zero targets being discussed and adopted could make the Paris goal possible if further countries follow suit.

This is an updated version of Gütschow et al. (2019, http://doi.org/10.5880/pik.2019.001). Please use this version which incorporates updates to input data as well as correction of errors in the original dataset and its previous updates. For a detailed description of the changes please consult the CHANGELOG included in the data description document. The PRIMAP-hist dataset combines several published datasets to create a comprehensive set of greenhouse gas emission pathways for every country and Kyoto gas covering the years 1850 to 2017, and all UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) member states, as well as most non-UNFCCC territories. The data resolves the main IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) 2006 categories. For CO2, CH4, and N2O subsector data for Energy, Industrial Processes and Agriculture is available. Version 2.1 of the PRIMAP-hist dataset does not include emissions from Land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF). List of datasets included in this data publication:(1) PRIMAP-hist_v2.1_09-Nov-2019.csv: With numerical extrapolation of all time series to 2017. (only in .zip folder)(2) PRIMAP-hist_no_extrapolation_v2.1_09-Nov-2019.csv: Without numerical extrapolation of missing values. (only in .zip folder)(3) PRIMAP-hist_v2.1_data-format-description: including CHANGELOG(4) PRIMAP-hist_v2.1_updated_figures: updated figures of those published in Gütschow et al. (2016)(all files are also included in the .zip folder) When using this dataset or one of its updates, please also cite the data description article (Gütschow et al., 2016, http://doi.org/10.5194/essd-8-571-2016) to which this data are supplement to. Please consider also citing the relevant original sources. SOURCES:- Global CO2 emissions from cement production v4: Andrew (2019)- BP Statistical Review of World Energy: BP (2019)- CDIAC: Boden et al. (2017)- EDGAR version 4.3.2: JRC and PBL (2017), Janssens-Maenhout et al. (2017)- EDGAR versions 4.2 and 4.2 FT2010: JRC and PBL (2011), Olivier and Janssens-Maenhout (2012)- EDGAR-HYDE 1.4: Van Aardenne et al. (2001), Olivier and Berdowski (2001)- FAOSTAT database: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2019)- RCP historical data: Meinshausen et al. (2011)- UNFCCC National Communications and National Inventory Reports for developing countries: UNFCCC (2019)- UNFCCC Biennal Update Reports: UNFCCC (2019)- UNFCCC Common Reporting Format (CRF): UNFCCC (2018), UNFCCC (2019), Jeffery et al. (2018) Full references are available in the data description document. Country resolved data are combined from different sources using the PRIMAP emissions module (Nabel et. al., 2011). They are supplemented with growth rates from regionally resolved sources and numerical extrapolations.