Journal article Open Access
On the optimality of 2°C targets and a decomposition of uncertainty
van der Wijst, Kaj-Ivar;
Hof, Andries;
van Vuuren, Detlef
Determining international climate mitigation response strategies is a complex task. Integrated Assessment Models support this process by analysing the interplay of the most relevant factors, including socio-economic developments, climate system uncertainty, damage estimates, mitigation costs and discount rates. Here, we develop a meta-model that disentangles the uncertainties of these factors using full literature ranges. This model allows comparing insights of the cost-minimising and cost-benefit modelling communities. Typically, mitigation scenarios focus on minimum-cost pathways achieving the Paris Agreement without accounting for damages; our analysis shows doing so could double the initial carbon price. In a full cost-benefit setting, we show that the optimal temperature target does not exceed 2.5 °C when considering medium damages and low discount rates, even with high mitigation costs. With low mitigation costs, optimal temperature change drops to 1.5 °C or less. The most important factor determining the optimal temperature is the damage function, accounting for 50% of the uncertainty.
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- Publication date:
- May 6, 2021
- DOI:
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- Published in:
- Nature Communications:.
- Grants:
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European Commission:
- COACCH - CO-designing the Assessment of Climate CHange costs (776479)
- Communities:
- License (for files):
- Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International