Beyond 'dangerous' climate change: emission scenarios for a new world
Only if Annex 1 nations reduce emissions immediately at rates far beyond those typically countenanced and only then if non-Annex 1 emissions peak between 2020 and 2025 before reducing at unprecedented rates, do global emissions peak by 2020. Consequently, the 2010 global peak central to many integrated assessment model scenarios as well as the 2015-2016 date enshrined in the CCC, Stern and ADAM analyses,
do not reflect any orthodox feasibility. By contrast, the logic of such studies suggests (extremely)
dangerous climate change can only be avoided if economic growth is exchanged, at least temporarily, for a period of planned austerity within Annex 1 nations and a rapid transition away from fossil-fuelled development within non-Annex 1 nations.
The analysis within this paper offers a stark and unremitting assessment of the climate change challenge facing the global community. There is now
little to no chance of maintaining the rise in global mean surface temperature at below 2.C, despite repeated high-level statements to the contrary. Moreover,
the impacts associated with 2.C have been revised upwards, sufficiently so that 2.C now more appropriately represents the threshold between dangerous and extremely dangerous climate change. Consequently, and with tentative signs of global emissions returning to their earlier levels of growth, 2010 represents a political tipping point. The science of climate change allied with emission pathways for Annex 1 and non-Annex 1 nations
suggests a profound departure in the scale and scope of the mitigation and adaption challenge from that detailed in many other analyses, particularly those directly informing policy.
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