Assessing the size and uncertainty of remaining carbon budgets
OA Location
Author(s)
Type
preprint
Abstract
The remaining carbon budget (RCB), the net amount of carbon dioxide humans can still emit without exceeding a chosen global warming limit, is often used to evaluate political action against the goals of the Paris Agreement. RCB estimates for 1.5C are small, and minor changes in their calculation can therefore result in large relative shifts. Here we evaluate recent RCB assessments by the IPCC and explain differences between them. We present calculation refinements together with robustness checks that increase confidence in RCB estimates. We conclude that the RCB for a 50% chance of keeping warming to 1.5C is around 300 GtCO2 as of January 2022, less than 8 years of current emissions. This estimate changes to 530 and 110 GtCO2 for a 33% and 66% chance, respectively. Key uncertainties affecting RCB estimates are the contribution of non-CO2 emissions, which depends on socioeconomic projections as much as on geophysical uncertainty, and the potential warming after net zero is reached.
Date Issued
2022-09-02
Citation
Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2022
Journal / Book Title
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s). This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
License URL
Publication Status
Published