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Climate change

All in the timing

Nature volume 493, pages 35–36 (2013)Cite this article

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How influential are the various factors involved in curbing global warming? A study finds that the timing of emissions reduction has the largest impact on the probability of limiting temperature increases to 2 °C. See Letter p.79

Climate science sometimes seems to have overtaken economics as the most dismal science. But a study by Rogelj et al. on page 79 of this issue1 might just change that. The authors quantify the importance of five 'uncertainties' that are thought to influence the chance of limiting global temperatures to different levels, using a suite of models to generate around 500 scenario variations. They find that the timing of international action to limit emissions has by far the largest impact. Furthermore, the models show that the impact of timing is highly nonlinear, and that delaying emissions limits by only five years, from 2020 to 2025, would dramatically cut the likelihood of limiting warming to 2 °C. The findings should help to make risks and consequences more transparent, and thereby support better-informed economic and political decisions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Steve Hatfield-Dodds is at CSIRO Ecosystem Sciences, Black Mountain Laboratories, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia, and at the Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University, Canberra.,

    Steve Hatfield-Dodds

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Correspondence to Steve Hatfield-Dodds.

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Hatfield-Dodds, S. All in the timing. Nature 493, 35–36 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/493035a

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