Constraints on long term warming in a climate mitigation scenario

Abstract

Abstract. Cumulative emissions budgets and net-zero emission target dates are often used to frame climate negotiations (Frameet al., 2014; Millar et al., 2016; Van Vuuren et al., 2016; Rogelj et al., 2015b; Matthews et al., 2012). However, their utilityfor near-term policy decisions is confounded by an uncertainties in future negative emissions capacity (Fuss et al., 2014; Smith et al., 2016; Larkin et al., 2018; Anderson and Peters, 2016) and in long term Earth System response to climate forcers(Rugenstein et al., 2019; Knutti et al., 2017; Armour, 2017) which may impact the utility of an indefinite carbon budget if peak temperatures occur significantly after net zero emissions are achieved, the likelihood of which in a simple model is conditionalon prior assumptions about the long term dynamics of the Earth System. Here we illustrate that the risks associated with nearterm positive emissions can be framed using a definite cumulative emissions budget with a 2040 time horizon, allowing thenecessity and scope for negative emissions deployment later in the century to be better informed by observed warming overcoming decades.