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Wave of net zero emission targets opens window to meeting the Paris Agreement

Nature Climate Change volume 11, pages 820–822 (2021)Cite this article

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Abstract

National net zero emission targets could, if fully implemented, reduce best estimates of projected global average temperature increase to 2.0–2.4 °C by 2100, bringing the Paris Agreement temperature goal within reach. A total of 131 countries are discussing, have announced or have adopted net zero targets, covering 72% of global emissions. These targets could substantially lower projected warming as compared to currently implemented policies (2.9–3.2 °C) or pledges submitted to the Paris Agreement (2.4–2.9 °C).

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Fig. 1: Estimates of temperature increase in 2100 above pre-industrial level as assessed by both the scenario inference and scenario construction approaches.

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Data availability

Global emissions data used by the CAT approach as well as associated figure code are available at https://github.com/climate-analytics/wave_of_net_zero_targets. All other data not already available in publicly available locations are made available in the  Supplementary Tables.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the work of the IAM modellers for developing the IPCC AR5 and SR15 scenario databases and the MAGICC climate modelling team. N.H., M.J.G., F.H, C.F., A.G., M.L.J., S.G-Z, S.M. and W.H acknowledge funding support from the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (grant no. 16_I_291_Global_A_CAT). J.R. acknowledges support by funding through the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant no. 820829 (CONSTRAIN).

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Niklas Höhne, Mathew J. Gidden.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. NewClimate Institute, Cologne, Germany

    Niklas Höhne, Frederic Hans, M. Louise Jeffery, Sofia Gonzales-Zuñiga & Silke Mooldijk

  2. Environmental Systems Analysis Group, Wageningen University, Wageningen, the Netherlands

    Niklas Höhne

  3. Climate Analytics, Berlin, Germany

    Matthew J. Gidden, Claire Fyson, Andreas Geiges & William Hare

  4. International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg, Austria

    Matthew J. Gidden & Joeri Rogelj

  5. PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, the Hague, the Netherlands

    Michel den Elzen

  6. Grantham Institute—Climate Change and Environment, Imperial College London, London, UK

    Joeri Rogelj

Authors
  1. Niklas Höhne
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  10. William Hare
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  11. Joeri Rogelj
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Contributions

All authors contributed to parts of the research and analysis. N.H. and M.G. conceived of and coordinated the writing of the paper. N.H., M.G., M.d.E. and J.R. developed the initial draft of the paper. J.R. and A.G. produced the figures and data tables. All authors contributed to the interpretation and analysis of the results as well as writing the paper.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Niklas Höhne or Matthew J. Gidden.

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Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information

Peer review information Nature Climate Change thanks Stefano Caserini, Rob Dellink, Kejun Jiang and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Figs. 1–3, Discussion, Tables 1–5 and References.

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Höhne, N., Gidden, M.J., den Elzen, M. et al. Wave of net zero emission targets opens window to meeting the Paris Agreement. Nat. Clim. Chang. 11, 820–822 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-021-01142-2

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