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1.
This article shows the potential impact on global GHG emissions in 2030, if all countries were to implement sectoral climate policies similar to successful examples already implemented elsewhere. This assessment was represented in the IMAGE and GLOBIOM/G4M models by replicating the impact of successful national policies at the sector level in all world regions. The first step was to select successful policies in nine policy areas. In the second step, the impact on the energy and land-use systems or GHG emissions was identified and translated into model parameters, assuming that it would be possible to translate the impacts of the policies to other countries. As a result, projected annual GHG emission levels would be about 50 GtCO2e by 2030 (2% above 2010 levels), compared to the 60 GtCO2e in the ‘current policies’ scenario. Most reductions are achieved in the electricity sector through expanding renewable energy, followed by the reduction of fluorinated gases, reducing venting and flaring in oil and gas production, and improving industry efficiency. Materializing the calculated mitigation potential might not be as straightforward given different country priorities, policy preferences and circumstances.

Key policy insights

  • Considerable emissions reductions globally would be possible, if a selection of successful policies were replicated and implemented in all countries worldwide.

  • This would significantly reduce, but not close, the emissions gap with a 2°C pathway.

  • From the selection of successful policies evaluated in this study, those implemented in the sector ‘electricity supply’ have the highest impact on global emissions compared to the ‘current policies’ scenario.

  • Replicating the impact of these policies worldwide could lead to emission and energy trends in the renewable electricity, passenger transport, industry (including fluorinated gases) and buildings sector, that are close to those in a 2°C scenario.

  • Using successful policies and translating these to policy impact per sector is a more reality-based alternative to most mitigation pathways, which need to make theoretical assumptions on policy cost-effectiveness.

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2.
The role of agriculture in the context of climate change is a complex issue. On the one hand, concerns about food security highlight the need to prioritize adaptation; on the other hand, the target of the Paris Agreement (keeping global temperature rise well below 2°C) cannot be achieved without a significant decrease in agricultural emissions. Various analyses of nationally determined contributions (NDCs) submitted under the Paris Agreement show how countries intend to prioritize the needs for adaptation and mitigation in the agricultural sector. This paper focuses on 46 countries that contribute 90% of global agricultural emissions and asks how they are addressing the agricultural sector in their climate mitigation policies. It takes into account that conditions and circumstances in countries vary significantly but might also indicate similar patterns. The analysis is based on information provided by countries in their NDCs, as well as their Biennial Reports (BRs) or Biennial Update Reports (BURs) under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). It further includes data on national agricultural emissions. By applying a mixed methods approach, which combines qualitative content analysis and comparative cluster analysis, we find that countries vary in their progress on agriculture and climate mitigation for many different reasons. These reasons include the national perception of the problem, divergent starting points for climate policy, particularities of the agricultural sector and, correspondingly, the availability of cost-effective mitigation technologies.

Key policy insights

  • While for many countries the NDCs signify the beginning of their climate policy, UNFCCC biennial reports can be used to learn more about the policies that countries have already implemented.

  • Mitigation action in the agricultural sector is emphasized most prominently in cases where co-benefits are possible and production is not impacted negatively.

  • Policies and measures in the agricultural sector often do not align with the UNFCCC system of monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV). In addition to improving MRV-systems, it seems equally important to exchange national experiences with implemented measures and policies.

  • The Koronivia Joint Work on Agriculture could take into account the problem of different definitions of sector boundaries and thus the importance of different mitigation measures.

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3.
The Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) submitted under the Paris Agreement propose a country’s contribution to global mitigation efforts and domestic adaptation initiatives. This paper provides a systematic analysis of NDCs submitted by South Asian nations, in order to assess how far their commitments might deliver meaningful contributions to the global 2°C target and to sustainable broad-based adaptation benefits. Though agriculture-related emissions are prominent in emission profiles of South Asian countries, their emission reduction commitments are less likely to include agriculture, partly because of a concern over food security. We find that income-enhancing mitigation technologies that do not jeopardize food security may significantly augment the region’s mitigation potential. In the case of adaptation, analysis shows that the greatest effort will be directed towards protecting the cornerstones of the ‘green revolution’ for ensuring food security. Development of efficient and climate-resilient agricultural value chains and integrated farming bodies will be important to ensuring adaptation investment. Potentially useful models of landscape level climate resilience actions and ecosystem-based adaptation are also presented, along with estimates of the aggregate costs of agricultural adaptation. Countries in the region propose different mixes of domestic and foreign, and public and private, adaptation finance to meet the substantial gaps.

Key policy insights

  • Though substantial potential for mitigation of agricultural emissions exists in South Asia, governments in the region do not commit to agricultural emissions reductions in their NDCs.

  • Large-scale adoption of income-enhancing technologies is the key to realizing agricultural mitigation potential in South Asia, whilst maintaining food security.

  • Increasing resilience and profitability through structural changes, value chain interventions, and landscape-level actions may provide strong options to build adaptive capacity and enhance food security.

  • Both private finance (autonomous adaptation) and international financial transfers will be required to close the substantial adaptation finance gap

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4.
The shale gas boom in the United States spurred a shift in electricity generation from coal to natural gas. Natural gas combined cycle units emit half of the CO2 to produce the same energy as a coal unit; therefore, the market trend is credited for a reduction in GHG emissions from the US power sector. However, methane that escapes the natural gas supply chain may undercut these relative climate benefits. In 2016, Canada, the United States and Mexico pledged to reduce methane emissions from the oil and natural gas sector 40–45% from 2012 levels by 2025. This article reviews the science-policy landscape of methane measurement and mitigation relevant for meeting this pledge, including changes in US policy following the 2016 presidential election. Considerable policy incoherence exists in all three countries. Reliable inventories remain elusive; despite government and private sector research efforts, the magnitude of methane emissions remains in dispute. Meanwhile, mitigation efforts vary significantly. A framework that integrates science and policy would enable actors to more effectively inform, leverage and pursue advances in methane measurement and mitigation. The framework is applied to North America, but could apply to other geographic contexts.

Key policy insights

  • The oil and gas sector’s contribution to atmospheric methane concentrations is becoming an increasingly prominent issue in climate policy.

  • Efforts to measure and control fugitive methane emissions do not presently proceed within a coherent framework that integrates science and policy.

  • In 2016, the governments of Canada, Mexico and the United States pledged to reduce methane emissions from the oil and natural gas sector 40–45% from 2012 levels by 2025.

  • The 2016 presidential election in the United States has halted American progress at the federal level, suggesting a heavier reliance on industry and subnational efforts in that country.

  • Collectively or individually, the countries, individual agencies, or private stakeholders could use the proposed North American Methane Reduction framework to direct research, enhance monitoring and evaluate mitigation efforts, and improve the chances that continental methane reduction targets will be achieved.

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5.
The Paris Agreement is the last hope to keep global temperature rise below 2°C. The consensus agrees to holding the increase in global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels, and to aim for 1.5°C. Each Party’s successive nationally determined contribution (NDC) will represent a progression beyond the party’s then current NDC, and reflect its highest possible ambition. Using Ireland as a test case, we show that increased mitigation ambition is required to meet the Paris Agreement goals in contrast to current EU policy goals of an 80–95% reduction by 2050. For the 1.5°C consistent carbon budgets, the technically feasible scenarios' abatement costs rise to greater than €8,100/tCO2 by 2050. The greatest economic impact is in the short term. Annual GDP growth rates in the period to 2020 reduce from 4% to 2.2% in the 1.5°C scenario. While aiming for net zero emissions beyond 2050, investment decisions in the next 5–10 years are critical to prevent carbon lock-in.

Key policy insights

  • Economic growth can be maintained in Ireland while rapidly decarbonizing the energy system.

  • The social cost of carbon needs to be included as standard in valuation of infrastructure investment planning, both by government finance departments and private investors.

  • Technological feasibility is not the limiting factor in achieving rapid deep decarbonization.

  • Immediate increased decarbonization ambition over the next 3–5 years is critical to achieve the Paris Agreement goals, acknowledging the current 80–95% reduction target is not consistent with temperature goals of ‘well below’ 2°C and pursuing 1.5°C.

  • Applying carbon budgets to the energy system results in non-linear CO2 emissions reductions over time, which contrast with current EU policy targets, and the implied optimal climate policy and mitigation investment strategy.

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6.
ABSTRACT

Forest and agricultural sector response to comprehensive climate policy is well represented in the literature. Less analysis has been devoted to piecemeal solutions. We use the Forest and Agriculture Sector Optimization Model with Greenhouse Gases (FASOMGHG) to project the individual and combined effect of three existing U.S. Department of Agriculture programmes with potential to increase greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation. We find that a combined policy scenario may achieve greater mitigation than individual constituent programmes, suggesting the possibility of complementary spillover effects in some periods. Mitigation varies over time, however, and some periods experience net emissions as markets and management practices respond to initial policy shocks. The regional distribution of GHG mitigation also varies between policy scenario. Differences in the magnitude and imputed cost of mitigation under each scenario, generating negative values for some programmes and time periods, reinforces the need to evaluate portfolio design to cost-effectively achieve near-term GHG mitigation.

Key policy insights
  • Increased near-term GHG mitigation in the forest and agriculture sectors in the US may be possible by expanding or refocusing the emphasis of existing programmes.

  • Implementing several such forest and agricultural programmes simultaneously may lead to greater GHG mitigation than when implemented separately, indicating the possibility of positive spillover effects.

  • Programmes targeted to agricultural management may hold outsized potential to achieve near-term GHG mitigation; Policies aimed at influencing land use conversion appear to be more vulnerable to reversion and subject to larger inter-annual swings.

  • The staged implementation of programmes could also be useful, helping to encourage increased mitigation (or the retention of already achieved mitigation) over time as markets re-equilibrate to initial shocks.

  • Though the particular scenarios assessed here are unique to the US, our findings may be applicable to other locations outside the US where land management is influenced by individual market actors and there is competition between forest and agricultural land uses.

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7.
To assess the potential impacts of the US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, this study applied GCAM-TU (an updated version of the Global Change Assessment Model) to simulate global and regional emission pathways of energy-related CO2, which show that US emissions in 2100 would reduce to ?2.4?Gt, ?0.7?Gt and ?0.2?Gt under scenarios of RCP2.6, RCP3.7 and RCP4.5, respectively. Two unfavourable policy scenarios were designed, assuming a temporary delay and a complete stop for US mitigation actions after 2015. Simulations by the Model for the Assessment of Greenhouse-gas Induced Climate Change (MAGICC) indicate that the temperature increase by 2100 would rise by 0.081°C–0.161°C compared to the three original RCPs (Representative Concentration Pathways) if US emissions were kept at their 2015 levels until 2100. The probability of staying below 2°C would decrease by 6–9% even if the US resumes mitigation efforts for achieving its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) target after 2025. It is estimated by GCAM-TU that, without US participation, increased reduction efforts are required for the rest of the world, including developing countries, in order to achieve the 2°C goal, resulting in 18% higher global cumulative mitigation costs from 2015 to 2100.

Key policy insights
  • President Trump’s climate policies, including planned withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, cast a shadow on international climate actions, and would lower the likelihood of achieving the 2°C target.

  • To meet the 2°C target without the US means increased reduction efforts and mitigation costs for the rest of the world, and considerable economic burdens for major developing areas.

  • Active state-, city- and enterprise-level powers should be supported to keep the emission reduction gap from further widening even with reduced mitigation efforts from the US federal government.

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8.
Strong and rapid greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions, far beyond those currently committed to, are required to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement. This allows no sector to maintain business as usual practices, while application of the precautionary principle requires avoiding a reliance on negative emission technologies. Animal to plant-sourced protein shifts offer substantial potential for GHG emission reductions. Unabated, the livestock sector could take between 37% and 49% of the GHG budget allowable under the 2°C and 1.5°C targets, respectively, by 2030. Inaction in the livestock sector would require substantial GHG reductions, far beyond what are planned or realistic, from other sectors. This outlook article outlines why animal to plant-sourced protein shifts should be taken up by the Conference of the Parties (COP), and how they could feature as part of countries’ mitigation commitments under their updated Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to be adopted from 2020 onwards. The proposed framework includes an acknowledgment of ‘peak livestock’, followed by targets for large and rapid reductions in livestock numbers based on a combined ‘worst first’ and ‘best available food’ approach. Adequate support, including climate finance, is needed to facilitate countries in implementing animal to plant-sourced protein shifts.

Key policy insights

  • Given the livestock sector’s significant contribution to global GHG emissions and methane dominance, animal to plant protein shifts make a necessary contribution to meeting the Paris temperature goals and reducing warming in the short term, while providing a suite of co-benefits.

  • Without action, the livestock sector could take between 37% and 49% of the GHG budget allowable under the 2°C and 1.5°C targets, respectively, by 2030.

  • Failure to implement animal to plant protein shifts increases the risk of exceeding temperate goals; requires additional GHG reductions from other sectors; and increases reliance on negative emissions technologies.

  • COP 24 is an opportunity to bring animal to plant protein shifts to the climate mitigation table.

  • Revised NDCs from 2020 should include animal to plant protein shifts, starting with a declaration of ‘peak livestock’, followed by a ‘worst first’ replacement approach, guided by ‘best available food’.

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9.
Under the Paris Agreement, countries are encouraged to submit long-term low greenhouse gas emissions development strategies. Such strategies will merge emissions goals with socio-economic objectives and enable countries to increase their ambition over time, thus offering an opportunity to close the gap between the current emissions trajectory and the Agreement’s ‘well below 2°C’ target. China is in the process of preparing its own long-term strategy. We argue in this article that non-CO2 greenhouse gases (NCGGs) should be an essential component of China’s long-term low-emissions strategy. To incorporate NCGGs into China’s long-term low-emissions development strategy, key scientific and institutional challenges should be addressed, such as uncertainty about the accuracy of NCGG emissions inventories; uncertainty about future projections of NCGG emissions; and institutional coordination deficits and imbalanced policy approaches. Overcoming these barriers will have significant implications for climate change mitigation and can open a path for the development of concrete follow-up actions.

Key policy insights

  • Non-CO2 greenhouse gases (NCGGs) make up around 17% of China’s GHG emissions, but China has no quantified target to limit or reduce these gases.

  • NCGG emissions mitigation should be an essential component of China's long-term low-emissions strategy, which is currently under development.

  • Considerable uncertainty exists over both historical NCGG emissions data and forecasts. This poses challenges to developing a comprehensive multi-gas strategy.

  • Institutional challenges must also be addressed, such as fragmentation of responsibility for NCGGs.

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10.
Arpad Cseh 《Climate Policy》2019,19(2):139-146
The global and long-term nature of climate change conflicts with the self-interest and short-term dominated priorities of decision-makers. Climate change mitigation makes sense at the global level, but not at the level of the individual decision-maker. This conflict has been and remains the main obstacle to effective global cooperation and mitigation. This paper proposes a framework that aligns climate action with short-term self-interest through results-based payments to governments. Its key components are: determining an emission benchmark for each country as well as a price for carbon saving; paying countries annually for reducing emissions below their respective benchmark; a new international fund to finance these annual payments by borrowing capital from private investors; and repaying borrowings in the long-term through payments made by countries to the fund based on a pre-determined allocation mechanism. This framework would offer important benefits over an approach focused on allocating climate action or a carbon budget among countries. These include the improved prospect of reaching an effective climate agreement and delivering fast and dramatic mitigation thanks to stronger political commitment, the transformation of short-term self-interest from an obstacle into a driver of climate action, and the additional financing created. The paper also proposes a pilot scheme focusing on hydrofluorocarbon emissions with a considerably lower financing requirement. This offers the possibility of an alternative financing mechanism, and thus a faster and more straightforward implementation path. Short-term financial incentives offered to governments could turn policy action from a burden into an opportunity from their perspective unlocking a huge potential for timely mitigation.

Key policy insights

  • A new international framework that offers short-term, results-based payments to governments to promote mitigation action could lead to much more effective global mitigation and international cooperation.

  • The financing of such an approach could be solved through a novel financing structure, backed by the long-term commitments of participating countries and thus aligning the timeframe of the financial costs of mitigation with its climate benefits.

  • The effectiveness of results-based payments and the concept behind this new approach could be proven through a pilot scheme focusing on hydrofluorocarbon emissions.

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11.
Limiting global warming to ‘well below’ 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5°C is an integral part of the 2015 Paris Agreement. To achieve these aims, cumulative global carbon emissions after 2016 should not exceed 940 – 390?Gt of CO2 (for the 2°C target) and 167 – ?48?Gt of CO2 (for the 1.5°C target) by the end of the century. This paper analyses the EU’s cumulative carbon emissions in different models and scenarios (global models, EU-focused models and national carbon mitigation scenarios). Due to the higher reductions in energy use and carbon intensity of the end-use sectors in the national scenarios, we identify an additional mitigation potential of 26–37 Gt cumulative CO2 emissions up to 2050 compared to what is currently included in global or EU scenarios. These additional reductions could help to both reduce the need for carbon dioxide removals and bring cumulative emissions in global and EU scenarios in line with a fairness-based domestic EU budget for a 2°C target, while still remaining way above the budget for 1.5°C.

Key policy insights
  • Models used for policy advice such as global integrated assessment models or EU models fail to consider certain mitigation potential available at the level of sectors.

  • Global and EU models assume significant levels of CO2 emission reductions from carbon capture and storage to reach the 1.5°C target but also to reach the 2°C target.

  • Global and EU model scenarios are not compatible with a fair domestic EU share in the global carbon budget either for 2°C or for 1.5°C.

  • Integrating additional sectoral mitigation potential from detailed national models can help bring down cumulative emissions in global and EU models to a level comparable to a fairness-based domestic EU share compatible with the 2°C target, but not the 1.5°C aspiration.

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12.
Global climate change governance has changed substantially in the last decade, with a shift in focus from negotiating globally agreed greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction targets to nationally determined contributions, as enshrined in the 2015 Paris Agreement. This paper analyses trends in adoption of national climate legislation and strategies, GHG targets, and renewable and energy efficiency targets in almost all UNFCCC Parties, focusing on the period from 2007 to 2017. The uniqueness and added value of this paper reside in its broad sweep of countries, the more than decade-long coverage and the use of objective metrics rather than normative judgements. Key results show that national climate legislation and strategies witnessed a strong increase in the first half of the assessed decade, likely due to the political lead up to the Copenhagen Climate Conference in 2009, but have somewhat stagnated in recent years, currently covering 70% of global GHG emissions (almost 50% of countries). In comparison, the coverage of GHG targets increased considerably in the run up to adoption of the Paris Agreement and 89% of global GHG emissions are currently covered by such targets. Renewable energy targets saw a steady spread, with 79% of the global GHG emissions covered in 2017 compared to 45% in 2007, with a steep increase in developing countries.

Key policy insights

  • The number of countries that have national legislation and strategies in place increased strongly up to 2012, but the increase has levelled off in recent years, now covering 70% of global emissions by 2017 (48% of countries and 76% of global population).

  • Economy-wide GHG reduction targets witnessed a strong increase in the build up to 2015 and are adopted by countries covering 89% of global GHG emissions (76% not counting USA) and 90% of global population (86% not counting USA) in 2017.

  • Renewable energy targets saw a steady increase throughout the last decade with coverage of countries in 2017 comparable to that of GHG targets.

  • Key shifts in national measures coincide with landmark international events – an increase in legislation and strategy in the build-up to the Copenhagen Climate Conference and an increase in targets around the Paris Agreement – emphasizing the importance of the international process to maintaining national momentum.

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13.
ABSTRACT

The per capita CO2 emissions (PCCE) of many developing countries like China have been rising faster than total CO2 emissions, and display spatial divergence. Such temporal growth and spatial divergence will have a significant influence on efforts to mitigate CO2 emissions. Given the research gap on the impact of the structural transition in population on PCCE, we constructed an econometric model using the dynamic panel method. The results reveal that the population structural transition has a significant nonlinear impact on PCCE, as the rate of population growth in China decelerates. Both demographic ageing and urban-rural migration have a stronger impact on PCCE than other factors. This effect, however, decreases beyond a certain threshold. An increase in the number of households due to urbanization and family downsizing has resulted in a positive effect on PCCE, without a threshold turning point. The research also finds that an increased share of the service sector in employment can reduce PCCE only if the sector employs more than 31.56% of the total employed population. Overall, these findings indicate that policymakers should pay attention to the prominence of the demographic structural transition for effective climate policy.

Key policy insights
  • Policymakers should address rising per capita carbon emissions (PCCE) and their spatial divergence in future climate policies, not just total CO2 emissions.

  • The transitioning demographics of ageing and urbanization in China show a nonlinear, inverted U-shaped effect on PCCE instead of a continuously positive effect.

  • Based on the nonlinear effect of employment structure on PCCE, policymakers should focus on the relationship between the structural transition of the economy and PCCE in future climate mitigation policies.

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14.
Food-insecure households in many countries depend on international aid to alleviate acute shocks and chronic shortages. Some food security programmes (including Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Program–PSNP – which provides a case study for this article) have integrated aid in exchange for labour on public works to reduce long-term dependence by investing in the productive capacity and resilience of communities. Using this approach, Ethiopia has embarked upon an ambitious national programme of land restoration and sustainable land management. Although the intent was to reduce poverty, here we show that an unintended co-benefit is the climate-change mitigation from reduced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and increased landscape carbon stocks. The article first shows that the total reduction in net GHG emissions from PSNP’s land management at the national scale is estimated at 3.4 million?Mg?CO2e?y?1 – approximately 1.5% of the emissions reductions in Ethiopia’s Nationally Determined Contribution for the Paris Agreement. The article then explores some of the opportunities and constraints to scaling up of this impact.

Key policy insights
  • Food security programmes (FSPs) can contribute to climate change mitigation by creating a vehicle for investment in land and ecosystem restoration.

  • Maximizing mitigation, while enhancing but not compromising food security, requires that climate projections, and mitigation and adaptation responses should be mainstreamed into planning and implementation of FSPs at all levels.

  • Cross-cutting oversight is required to integrate land restoration, climate policy, food security and disaster risk management into a coherent policy framework.

  • Institutional barriers to optimal implementation should be addressed, such as incentive mechanisms that reward effort rather than results, and lack of centralized monitoring and evaluation of impacts on the physical environment.

  • Project implementation can often be improved by adopting best management practices, such as using productive living livestock barriers where possible, and increasing the integration of agroforestry and non-timber forest products into landscape regeneration.

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15.
Lei Zhu  Pan Peng  Ying Fan 《Climate Policy》2018,18(6):781-793
After the successful conclusion of the Paris Climate Conference (Conference of the Parties (COP) 21), countries are now attempting to identify implementation measures. An important consensus has been reached on the necessity of putting in place both mitigation and adaptation measures. In this context, this article builds a three-sector China and rest of the world model based on the DE-carbonization Model with Endogenous Technologies for Emission Reductions (DEMETER) and World Induced Technical Change Hybrid (WITCH) models. It assesses China’s mitigation and adaptation investment strategies by 2050 with an optimization including climate externalities. By making the 450?ppm target and China’s 2030 CO2 emissions peak exogenous, it assesses two scenarios: (1) investment only in mitigation and (2) investment in both mitigation and adaptation. The article finds the following: First, the policy package with investment in both mitigation and adaptation can ensure lower CO2 emissions and avoid more climate damage. Second, investment in adaptation should be massively injected by around 2040, whereas mitigation efforts should be continuous. Third, the CO2 emissions peak in the tertiary sector should come prior to 2030 while the emissions pathway of the secondary sector could be allowed to increase slowly until 2035.

POLICY RELEVANCE
  • The necessity of engaging in both mitigation and adaptation has been widely accepted since the Paris Climate Conference (COP21), yet few studies exist in this regard concerning China.

  • Substantial investment in adaptation needs to be introduced by 2040 while the investment on mitigation should peak by 2030.

  • The CO2 emissions peak in the tertiary sector would be reached prior to 2030 while the peak in the secondary sector is achieved around 2035.

  • This provides an alternative in China to the existing argument of an earlier peak in the secondary sector.

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16.
The Paris Agreement, which entered into force in 2016, sets the ambitious climate change mitigation goal of limiting the global temperature increase to below 2°C and ideally 1.5°C. This puts a severe constraint on the remaining global GHG emissions budget. While international shipping is also a contributor to anthropogenic GHG emissions, and CO2 in particular, it is not included in the Paris Agreement. This article discusses how a share of a global CO2 budget over the twenty-first century could be apportioned to international shipping, and, using a range of future trade scenarios, explores the requisite cuts to the CO2 intensity of shipping. The results demonstrate that, under a wide range of assumptions, existing short-term levers of efficiency must be urgently exploited to achieve mitigation commensurate with that required from the rest of the economy, with virtually full decarbonization of international shipping required as early as before mid-century.

Key policy insights

  • Regulatory action is key to ensuring the international shipping sector’s long-term sustainability.

  • For the shipping industry to deliver mitigation in line with the Paris Agreement, virtually full decarbonization needs to be achieved.

  • In the near term, immediate and rapid exploitation of available mitigation measures is of critical importance.

  • Any delay in the transition will increase the risk of stranded assets, or diminish the chances of meeting the Paris Agreement's temperature commitments.

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17.
International carbon markets can be an important tool in achieving countries’ mitigation targets under the Paris Agreement, but they are subject to a number of environmental integrity risks. An important risk is that some countries have mitigation targets that correspond to higher levels of emissions than independent projections of their likely emissions. If such ‘hot air’ can be transferred to other countries, it could increase aggregated emissions and create a perverse incentive for countries not to enhance the ambition of future mitigation targets. Limits to international transfers of mitigation outcomes have been proposed to address this risk. This article proposes a typology for such limits, explores key design options, and tests different types of limits in the context of 15 countries. Our analysis indicates that limits to international transfers could, if designed appropriately, prevent most of the hot air contained in current mitigation targets from being transferred, but also involve trade-offs between different policy objectives. Given the risks from international transfer of hot air and the uncertainty over whether other approaches will be effective in ensuring environmental integrity, we recommend that countries take a cautious approach and pursue a portfolio of approaches to ensure environmental integrity, in which case limits could provide for additional safeguards.

Key policy insights

  • Limits to international transfers involve trade-offs between different policy objectives, in particular reducing the risk that countries transfer hot air and enabling participation in carbon markets.

  • Under ‘relative’ limits a country may transfer mitigation outcomes to the extent that its actual emissions are below the limit. Relative limits derived from historical emissions data have significant limitations, and none of the tested approaches was found to be effective for all countries. Relative limits based on emission projections could be a more valid approach, although they are also technically and politically challenging.

  • Under ‘absolute’ limits a country could only issue, transfer or acquire a certain amount of mitigation outcomes. Absolute limits set at sufficiently low levels could prevent countries from transferring large amounts of hot air, but are bluntly applicable to all countries, whether or not they have hot air.

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18.
The Paris Agreement establishes provisions for using international carbon market mechanisms to achieve climate mitigation contributions. Environmental integrity is a key principle for using such mechanisms under the Agreement. This paper systematically identifies and categorizes issues and options to achieve environmental integrity, including how it could be defined, what influences it, and what approaches could mitigate environmental integrity risks. Here, environmental integrity is assumed to be ensured if the engagement in international transfers of carbon market units leads to the same or lower aggregated global emissions. Four factors are identified that influence environmental integrity: the accounting for international transfers; the quality of units generated, i.e. whether the mechanism ensures that the issuance or transfer of units leads to emission reductions in the transferring country; the ambition and scope of the mitigation target of the transferring country; and incentives or disincentives for future mitigation action, such as possible disincentives for transferring countries to define future mitigation targets less ambitiously or more narrowly in order to sell more units. It is recommended that policy-makers combine several approaches to address the significant risks to environmental integrity.

Key policy insights

  • Robust accounting is a key prerequisite for ensuring environmental integrity. The diversity of nationally determined contributions is an important challenge, in particular for avoiding double counting and for ensuring that the accounting for international transfers is representative for the mitigation efforts by Parties over time.

  • Unit quality can, in theory, be ensured through appropriate design of carbon market mechanisms; in practice, existing mechanisms face considerable challenges in ensuring unit quality. Unit quality could be promoted through guidance under Paris Agreement Article 6, and reporting and review under Article 13.

  • The ambition and scope of mitigation targets is key for the incentive for transferring countries to ensure unit quality because countries with ambitious and economy-wide targets would have to compensate for any transfer of units that lack quality. Encouraging countries to adopt ambitious and economy-wide NDC targets would therefore facilitate achieving environmental integrity.

  • Restricting transfers in instances of high environmental integrity risk – through eligibility criteria or limits – could complement these approaches.

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19.
Research on air travellers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for climate change mitigation has focussed on voluntary emissions offsetting so far. This approach overlooks policy relevant knowledge as it does not consider that people may value public goods higher if they are certain that others also contribute. To account for potential differences, this study investigates Swedish adults’ WTP for a mandatory air ticket surcharge both for short- and long-distance flights. Additionally, policy relevant factors influencing WTP for air travel emissions reductions were investigated. The results suggest that mean WTP is higher in the low-cost setting associated with short-distance flights (495 SEK/ tCO2; 50 EUR/ tCO2) than for long-distance flights (295 SEK/ tCO2; 30 EUR/t CO2). The respondents were more likely to be willing to pay the air ticket tax if they were not frequent flyers, if they were women, had a left political view, if they had a sense of responsibility for their emissions and if they preferred earmarking revenues from the tax for climate change mitigation and sustainable transport projects.

Key policy insights

  • A mandatory air ticket tax is a viable policy option that might receive majority support among the population.

  • While a carbon-based air ticket tax promises to be an effective tool to generate revenues, its potential steering effect appears to be lower for low cost contexts (short-distance flights) than for high cost contexts (long-distance flights).

  • Policy consistency regarding the tax base and its revenue use may increase public acceptability of (higher) air ticket taxes. Earmarking revenues is clearly preferred to tax recycling or general budget use.

  • Insights about the personal drivers behind WTP for emissions reductions from air travel can help to inform targeting and segmentation of policy interventions.

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20.
The recent change in US presidential administrations has introduced significant uncertainty about both domestic and international policy support for continued reductions in GHG emissions. This brief analysis estimates the potential climate ramifications of changing US leadership, contrasting the Mid-Century Strategy for Deep Decarbonization (MCS) released under the Obama Administration, with campaign statements, early executive actions, and prevailing market conditions to estimate potential emission pathways under the Trump Administration. The analysis highlights areas where GHG reductions are less robust to changing policy conditions, and offers brief recommendations for addressing emissions in the interim. It specifically finds that continued reductions in the electricity sector are less vulnerable to changes in federal policy than those in the built environment and land use sectors. Given the long-lived nature of investments in these latter two sectors, however, opportunities for near-term climate action by willing cities, states, private landowners, and non-profit organizations warrant renewed attention in this time of climate uncertainty.

Key policy insights

  • The recent US presidential election has already impacted mitigation goals and practices, injecting considerable uncertainty into domestic and international efforts to address climate change.

  • A strategic assessment issued in the final days of the Obama Administration for how to reach long-term climate mitigation objectives provides a baseline from which to gauge potential changes under the Trump Administration.

  • Though market trends may continue to foster emission declines in the energy sector, emission reductions in the land use sector and the built environment are subject to considerable uncertainty.

  • Regardless of actions to scale back climate mitigation efforts, US emissions are likely to be flat in the coming years. Assuming that emissions remain constant under President Trump and that reductions resume afterwards to meet the Obama Administration mid-century targets in 2050, this near-term pause in reductions yields a difference in total emissions equivalent to 0.3–0.6 years of additional global greenhouse gas emissions, depending on the number of terms served by a Trump Administration.

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