Estimates in greenhouse gas reductions on the terms of the Paris Agreement can be improved by 10%, if participating countries make a commitment to submit their climate plans every five years. Paris Agreement aims to limit global warming to below two degrees Celsius by 2030. However, the current result estimates vary by as much as 30%, due to assumptions of socioeconomic development, formulation of the nationally determined contribution (NDC) targets and variations in alternative energy accounting methods. According to a model described in a new paper, if each individual country shares and commits to their NDCs regularly, the Paris Agreement results will be much easier to pin down.

Authors:

Joeri Rogelj, Oliver Fricko, Malte Meinshausen, Volker Krey, Johanna J. J. Zilliacus & Keywan Riahi

Corresponding author:

Joeri Rogelj, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg, Austria, Email: rogelj@iiasa.ac.at

Original paper published in Nature on June 6, 2017.