Publications

Aggregations of greenhouse gas mitigation pledges by countries are frequently used to indicate whether resulting global emissions in 2020 will be 'on track' to limit global temperature increase to below specific warming levels such as 1.5 or 2 °C. We find that historical emission levels aggregated from data that are officially reported by countries to the UNFCCC are lower than independent global emission estimates, such as the IPCC SRES scenarios.

This analysis demonstrates that the Copenhagen Accord and the pledges made under it represent a set of dissonant ambitions. Due to the limited level of ambition by 2020, the ability to limit emissions afterwards to pathways consistent with either the 2 or 1.5 °C goal is likely to become less feasible.

In the IPCC's 4th Assessment Report the global warming potentials were updated from those in the 1995 2nd Assessment Report. Here we explore using the updated GWPs to estimate the effects of the 2020 emissions targets on global warming.

This briefing paper examines the overall mitigation pledges made under the Copenhagen Accord against the perspective of limiting warming to either the 2°C or 1.5°C goals, and looks at which levels of mitigation levels are needed, before concluding with an initial discussion of the implications for Africa

Current national emissions targets can't limit global warming to 2°C, calculate Joeri Rogelj, Malte Meinshausen and colleagues — they might even lock the world into exceeding 3°C warming.

This study describes the coupling of the dynamic global vegetation model (DGVM), Lund–Potsdam–Jena Model for managed land (LPJmL), with the general circulation model (GCM), Simplified Parameterizations primitivE Equation DYnamics model (SPEEDY), to study the feedbacks between land-use change and natural vegetation dynamics and climate during the 20th century.