Even if the world makes long-term cuts to carbon emissions of 90% relative to 2009 levels, it will miss the target of limiting global warming to 2 °C by the end of the millennium. Only if larger cuts are made — both long term and globally, starting in the next couple of decades — at an annual rate of at least 3% could that target be met.
Pierre Friedlingstein at the University of Exeter, UK, and his colleagues used a coupled climate–carbon-cycle model to simulate global warming until the year 3000 in various scenarios. If a 3% yearly reduction rate began 30 years from now for a total emissions cut of 90%, the average global temperature would be nearly 3 °C higher in 3000.
When the authors accounted for the climate's sensitivity to the effects of increased atmospheric carbon, they found that only when the sensitivity is low could a more conservative mitigation rate of 1% per year implemented within the next 10 years meet the 2 °C target.
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Out-of-reach goal to limit warming. Nature 479, 448 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/479448c
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/479448c
