The contributions of individual countries and regions to the global radiative forcing

Fu, B., Li, B., Gasser, T. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4882-2647, Tao, S., Ciais, P., Piao, S., Balkanski, Y., Li, W., et al. (2021). The contributions of individual countries and regions to the global radiative forcing. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 118 (15) e2018211118. 10.1073/pnas.2018211118.

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Abstract

Knowing the historical relative contribution of greenhouse gases (GHGs) and short-lived climate forcers (SLCFs) to global radiative forcing (RF) at the regional level can help understand how future GHGs emission reductions and associated or independent reductions in SLCFs will affect the ultimate purpose of the Paris Agreement. In this study, we use a compact Earth system model to quantify the global RF and attribute global RF to individual countries and regions. As our evaluation, the United States, the first 15 European Union members, and China are the top three contributors, accounting for 21.9 ± 3.1%, 13.7 ± 1.6%, and 8.6 ± 7.0% of global RF in 2014, respectively. We also find a contrast between developed countries where GHGs dominate the RF and developing countries where SLCFs including aerosols and ozone are more dominant. In developing countries, negative RF caused by aerosols largely masks the positive RF from GHGs. As developing countries take measures to improve the air quality, their negative contributions from aerosols will likely be reduced in the future, which will in turn enhance global warming. This underlines the importance of reducing GHG emissions in parallel to avoid any detrimental consequences from air quality policies.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: radiative forcing; climate change; attribution; regional contributions
Research Programs: Advancing Systems Analysis (ASA)
Advancing Systems Analysis (ASA) > Exploratory Modeling of Human-natural Systems (EM)
Energy, Climate, and Environment (ECE)
Energy, Climate, and Environment (ECE) > Integrated Assessment and Climate Change (IACC)
Depositing User: Luke Kirwan
Date Deposited: 21 Apr 2021 11:34
Last Modified: 27 Aug 2021 17:34
URI: https://pure.iiasa.ac.at/17176

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