Full Title: Climate Solutions Series: Deep Decarbonization Pathways
Author(s): Stephen J. Naimoli and Sarah Ladislaw
Publisher(s): Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
Publication Date: March 10, 2020
Full Text: Download Resource
Description (excerpt):
Reducing emissions to lessen the long-term impacts of a warming climate has been a shared objective of the international community for decades. To date, progress toward this goal has not kept pace with pathways necessary to deliver a stabilized climate by the end of the century. The result is that the emissions pathways necessary to achieve this target relative to current activity are necessarily steeper and the energy and land-use system changes required are more abrupt. The current scientific consensus indicates that to stabilize the climate and prevent the most catastrophic effects of climate change, we must reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to net-zero by or soon after 2050.1,2 In 2010, GHG emissions reached 49 gigatons of carbon dioxide (CO2)-equivalent per year. To reach net-zero, the world must reduce emissions through a combination of replacing GHG-emitting resources with zero-emissions sources and capturing emissions from the remaining sources that cannot be replaced. This resource brief explores how to understand the pathways to net-zero emissions and some of the ways to achieve this goal.