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Emissions: world has four times the work or one-third of the time

New synthesis shows what a wasted decade means for the climate pact made in Paris.
  1. Niklas Höhne

    1. Niklas Höhne is partner at NewClimate Institute, Cologne, Germany, professor for mitigation of greenhouse gases at the University of Wageningen, the Netherlands, and affiliate at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, California, USA.

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  2. Michel den Elzen

    1. Michel den Elzen is a senior researcher at the PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, The Hague, the Netherlands.

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  3. Joeri Rogelj

    1. Joeri Rogelj is lecturer in climate change at the Grantham Institute, Imperial College London, UK, and senior research scholar at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg, Austria.

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  4. Bert Metz

    1. Bert Metz is former co-chair of the IPCC Working Group on Mitigation and fellow at the European Climate Foundation, The Hague, the Netherlands.

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  5. Taryn Fransen

    1. Taryn Fransen is senior fellow at the World Resources Institute, Washington DC, USA.

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  6. Takeshi Kuramochi

    1. Takeshi Kuramochi is senior climate-policy researcher at NewClimate Institute, Cologne, Germany, and affiliated with the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development, Utrecht University, the Netherlands.

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  7. Anne Olhoff

    1. Anne Olhoff is strategic director of climate planning and policy at UNEP DTU Partnership, Technical University of Denmark, Copenhagen, Denmark.

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  8. Joseph Alcamo

    1. Joseph Alcamo is professor of environmental systems science and director of the Sussex Sustainability Research Programme at the University of Sussex, Brighton, UK.

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  9. Harald Winkler

    1. Harald Winkler is professor in energy and climate policy at the University of Cape Town, South Africa.

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  10. Sha Fu

    1. Sha Fu is an associate professor in climate economics at Energy Foundation China, Beijing, China.

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  11. Michiel Schaeffer

    1. Michiel Schaeffer is science director at Climate Analytics, Berlin, Germany, and affiliated with Environmental Systems Analysis Group, Wageningen University, the Netherlands.

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  12. Roberto Schaeffer

    1. Roberto Schaeffer is professor of energy economics at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

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  13. Glen P. Peters

    1. Glen P. Peters is research director at the CICERO Center for International Climate Research, Oslo, Norway.

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  14. Simon Maxwell

    1. Simon Maxwell is senior research associate at the Overseas Development Institute, London, UK.

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  15. Navroz K. Dubash

    1. Navroz K. Dubash is professor and coordinator of the Initiative on Climate, Energy and Environment at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi, India.

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Women in brightly coloured traditional Indian dress carry large baskets full of coal on their heads

Women carry coal from an open-cast mine in Jharkand state in India. Credit: Kuni Takahashi/Getty

The past decade of political failure on climate change has cost us all dear. It has shrunk the time left for action by two-thirds. In 2010, the world thought it had 30 years to halve global emissions of greenhouse gases. Today, we know that this must happen in ten years to minimize the effects of climate change. Incremental shifts that might once have been sufficient are no longer enough.

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Nature 579, 25-28 (2020)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-00571-x

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Supplementary Information

  1. Acknowledgements and additional data

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