Carbon budgeting post-COP21: The need for an equitable strategy for meeting CO2e targets

Abstract

The Paris Climate Change Agreement is a mixed blessing. Although it has been heralded as a great success, there is a low probability that it will reduce carbon dioxide equivalent emissions at the pace required to ensure a safe climate, based on current progress and processes. This chapter provides an overview of the scale of the problem of achieving the Paris Climate Change aspirations using a carbon emissions budget approach. This is important because current National Determined Contributions and Intended National Determined Contributions do not place the global community on a pathway to limit warming at or below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels by 2100. Suggestions are made on how a general carbon emissions budget can be used to limit global warming through equity and transparency processes. This chapter adds to the conversation on the imperative to ratchet up commitments under the Paris Agreement as the window on action to mitigate against dangerous climate change is about to close.