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Politically informed advice for climate action

Nature Geoscience volume 11, pages 380–383 (2018)Cite this article

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Upward estimates for carbon budgets are unlikely to lead to action-focused climate policy. Climate researchers need to understand processes and incentives in policymaking and politics to communicate effectively.

Climate policymakers unexpectedly received an extension by about 500 Gt in the remaining budget of carbon dioxide emissions for ambitious temperature targets, as a recalculated 1.5 °C budget was published1 in September 2017, and the approach later confirmed2,3. That the previous estimate — introduced in the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) — is in need of an update that could lead to larger carbon budgets is now broadly accepted4,5. Nevertheless, the specifics of the recalculation, and consequently the magnitude of the extension, have been controversial within the climate community.

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Fig. 1: Shifting benchmarks.

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Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank F. Schenuit for his support in tracing benchmark shifts in UNEP Emissions Gap Reports 2010–2017.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Ocean in the Earth System, Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Hamburg, Germany

    Oliver Geden

  2. Centre for Globalisation and Governance, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

    Oliver Geden

  3. EU/Europe Research Division, German Institute for International and Security Affairs, Berlin, Germany

    Oliver Geden

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  1. Oliver Geden
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Correspondence to Oliver Geden.

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Geden, O. Politically informed advice for climate action. Nature Geosci 11, 380–383 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-018-0143-3

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