The need for science-based information. A requirement for top-down and bottom-up decision-making processes

Abstract

For the first time, a global pact has been reached to set a common global limit on emissions which is quantifiable and therefore provides thresholds upon which to establish nation’s emission reductions pathways. This pact is the Paris Agreement (2015), by which its signatories agreed according to Art. 2.1 lit. a to make efforts to halt the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels (in the following “well below 2 °C limit” or “<2 °C limit”) and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels. This decision came from the recognition that these actions would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change. The well below 2 °C limit is based on the recommendations of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (“IPCC”)’s Fifth Assessment Report. Regional and national policies have been enacted as a response to this limit, but evidence between these national targets’ actual contribution to keeping global temperatures below 2 °C is weak. This weakness is presumably associated with the fact that climate targets are often decided without properly taking climate science into consideration. If scientific information by which the alignment of policy strategies and plans with the <2 °C limit is missing, how can we claim that regions, countries and states’ targets are in line with the Paris Agreement? Another weakness in established targets has to do with how economic players such as sectors and companies are incorporated into the equation. It seems to be a reasonable approach to set climate targets at different levels, from a top-down and a bottom-up approach in order to increase the likelihood of maintaining temperatures well below the 2 °C limit. The targets established at a top-down level need to bear relation to the targets established at lower levels. The manner in which they correlate can be provided by the well below 2 °C limit defined by the Paris Agreement. By targets at higher levels and at lower levels been set with one same reference point, the 2 °C limit, the likelihood of an appropriate correspondence between targets is highly incremented. The research question that will be explored in this article is if using science-based information can assist in making the meeting point represented by the 2 °C limit, workable from two directions: top-down and bottom-up.