TY  - JOUR
ID  - iiasa14498
UR  - https://pure.iiasa.ac.at/id/eprint/14498/
IS  - 6331
A1  - Rockström, J.
A1  - Gaffney, O.
A1  - Rogelj, J.
A1  - Meinshausen, M.
A1  - Nakicenovic, N.
A1  - Schellnhuber, H.J.
Y1  - 2017/03/24/
N2  - Although the Paris Agreement's goals (1) are aligned with science (2) and can, in principle, be technically and economically achieved (3), alarming inconsistencies remain between science-based targets and national commitments. Despite progress during the 2016 Marrakech climate negotiations, long-term goals can be trumped by political short-termism. Following the Agreement, which became international law earlier than expected, several countries published mid-century decarbonization strategies, with more due soon. Model-based decarbonization assessments (4) and scenarios often struggle to capture transformative change and the dynamics associated with it: disruption, innovation, and nonlinear change in human behavior. For example, in just 2 years, China's coal use swung from 3.7% growth in 2013 to a decline of 3.7% in 2015 (5). To harness these dynamics and to calibrate for short-term realpolitik, we propose framing the decarbonization challenge in terms of a global decadal roadmap based on a simple heuristic?a ?carbon law??of halving gross anthropogenic carbon-dioxide (CO2) emissions every decade. Complemented by immediately instigated, scalable carbon removal and efforts to ramp down land-use CO2 emissions, this can lead to net-zero emissions around mid-century, a path necessary to limit warming to well below 2°C.
PB  - American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
JF  - Science
VL  - 355
SN  - 1095-9203
TI  - A roadmap for rapid decarbonization
SP  - 1269
AV  - public
EP  - 1271
ER  -