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The climate policy narrative for a dangerously warming world

Nature Climate Change volume 4, pages 164–166 (2014)Cite this article

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It is time to acknowledge that global average temperatures are likely to rise above the 2 °C policy target and consider how that deeply troubling prospect should affect priorities for communicating and managing the risks of a dangerously warming climate.

When world leaders signed the Copenhagen Accord in 2009, they agreed to limit the increase in global average surface temperature to less than 2 °C above the pre-industrial level, a target then widely viewed as consistent with avoiding dangerous climate change and feasible to achieve through ambitious reductions in heat-trapping emissions. The climate policy agenda has since been dominated by the narrative that swift and deep reductions in emissions are urgently needed to stay below 2 °C (Refs 1,2,3,4).

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Figure 1: Observed and projected trends in global CO2 emissions under four RCP scenarios.

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Acknowledgements

We thank P. Baer, E. Diringer, B. Ekwurzel, M. Fitzpatrick, N. Mabey, M. Mastrandrea, J. McCarthy and B. Preston for comments and discussions.

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Affiliations

  1. Union of Concerned Scientists, 1825 K Street NW, Ste. 800, 20006, Washington DC, USA

    Todd Sanford

  2. Union of Concerned Scientists, 2 Brattle Square Cambridge, 02238, Massachusetts, USA

    Peter C. Frumhoff

  3. Skoll Global Threats Fund, 1808 Wedemeyer Street, San Francisco, 94129, California, USA

    Amy Luers

  4. Oak Ridge National Laboratory, One Bethel Valley Road, PO Box 2008, MS-6035 Oak Ridge, Tennessee, 37831, USA

    Jay Gulledge

Authors
  1. Todd Sanford
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  2. Peter C. Frumhoff
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  3. Amy Luers
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  4. Jay Gulledge
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Peter C. Frumhoff.

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Sanford, T., Frumhoff, P., Luers, A. et al. The climate policy narrative for a dangerously warming world. Nature Clim Change 4, 164–166 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2148

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