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Mapping the climate change challenge

Abstract

Discussions on a long-term global goal to limit climate change, in the form of an upper limit to warming, were only partially resolved at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change negotiations in Paris, 2015. Such a political agreement must be informed by scientific knowledge. One way to communicate the costs and benefits of policies is through a mapping that systematically explores the consequences of different choices. Such a multi-disciplinary effort based on the analysis of a set of scenarios helped structure the IPCC AR5 Synthesis Report. This Perspective summarizes this approach, reviews its strengths and limitations, and discusses how decision-makers can use its results in practice. It also identifies research needs that can facilitate integrated analysis of climate change and help better inform policy-makers and the public.

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Figure 1: The mapping of the relationship between risks from climate change, temperature change, cumulative CO2 emissions, and annual GHG emissions changes by 2050 and 2100.

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Acknowledgements

This paper benefited from many discussions with all the authors of the AR5 Synthesis Report of the IPCC, many authors from the three Working Groups, and members from the government delegations during the approval plenary in Copenhagen, 2014. Marianne Fay, Jan Fuglestvedt and Brian O'Neill provided useful comment on previous versions of the manuscript.

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All authors contributed to the assessment of the literature, the design of the figure and concepts and the writing of the paper.

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Correspondence to Stephane Hallegatte.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Hallegatte, S., Rogelj, J., Allen, M. et al. Mapping the climate change challenge. Nature Clim Change 6, 663–668 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate3057

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