eprintid: 14498 rev_number: 15 eprint_status: archive userid: 353 dir: disk0/00/01/44/98 datestamp: 2017-03-24 07:53:28 lastmod: 2022-01-26 11:46:12 status_changed: 2017-03-24 07:53:28 type: article metadata_visibility: show item_issues_count: 0 creators_name: Rockström, J. creators_name: Gaffney, O. creators_name: Rogelj, J. creators_name: Meinshausen, M. creators_name: Nakicenovic, N. creators_name: Schellnhuber, H.J. creators_id: 8630 creators_id: 395 creators_orcid: 0000-0003-2056-9061 creators_orcid: 0000-0001-7176-4604 title: A roadmap for rapid decarbonization ispublished: pub divisions: prog_ene abstract: 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. date: 2017-03-24 date_type: published publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) id_number: 10.1126/science.aah3443 creators_browse_id: 254 creators_browse_id: 214 full_text_status: public publication: Science volume: 355 number: 6331 pagerange: 1269-1271 refereed: TRUE issn: 1095-9203 projects: The World in 2050 (TWI2050) coversheets_dirty: FALSE fp7_project: no fp7_type: info:eu-repo/semantics/article citation: Rockström, J., Gaffney, O., Rogelj, J. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2056-9061 , Meinshausen, M., Nakicenovic, N. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7176-4604 , & Schellnhuber, H.J. (2017). A roadmap for rapid decarbonization. Science 355 (6331) 1269-1271. 10.1126/science.aah3443 . document_url: https://pure.iiasa.ac.at/id/eprint/14498/1/Rockstr%C3%B6mEtAl_2017_Science_A%20roadmap%20for%20rapid%20decarbonization.pdf