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Beyond carbon budgets

Nature Geoscience volume 11, pages 378–380 (2018)Cite this article

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The remaining carbon budget consistent with limiting warming to 1.5 °C allows 20 more years of current emissions according to one study, but is already exhausted according to another. Both are defensible. We need to move on from a unique carbon budget, and face the nuances.

The world woke up to some stunning news on an otherwise quiet September day in 2017. A new study1 on carbon budgets found that it was “not yet a geophysical impossibility” to limit warming to 1.5 °C. These findings have since been confirmed, also by combining observations with Earth system models2,3. The remaining carbon budget for 1.5 °C may consequently be several times larger than previously suggested by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)4.

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Fig. 1: Temperature and cumulative emissions pathways.
Fig. 2: Model differences.

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  1. CICERO Center for International Climate Research, Oslo, Norway

    Glen P. Peters

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  1. Glen P. Peters
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Correspondence to Glen P. Peters.

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Peters, G.P. Beyond carbon budgets. Nature Geosci 11, 378–380 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-018-0142-4

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