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This article provides further detail on expected global GHG emission levels in 2020, based on the Emissions Gap Report (United Nations Environment Programme, December 2010), assuming the emission reduction proposals in the Copenhagen Accord and Cancun Agreements are met. Large differences are found in the results of individual groups owing to uncertainties in current and projected emission estimates and in the interpretation of the reduction proposals. Regardless of these uncertainties, the pledges for 2020 are expected to deliver emission levels above those that are consistent with a 2°C limit. This emissions gap could be narrowed through implementing the more stringent conditional pledges, minimizing the use of ‘lenient’ credits from forests and surplus emission units, avoiding double-counting of offsets and implementing measures beyond current pledges. Conversely, emission reduction gains from countries moving from their low to high ambition pledges could be more than offset by the use of ‘lenient’ land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF) credits and surplus emissions units, if these were used to the maximum. Laying the groundwork for faster emission reduction rates after 2020 appears to be crucial in any case.
Cet article fournit davantage de détail sur les niveaux anticipés d’émissions de gaz à effet de serre en 2020, sur la base du rapport sur les écarts en émissions « Emissions Gap Report » (Programme environnemental des Nations Unies, décembre 2010), en supposant que les propositions de réductions d’émissions contenues dans les Accords de Copenhague et de Cancún soient respectées. De grandes différences sont observées dans les résultats attribuables aux groupes individuels en raison d'incertitudes autour des estimations d’émissions actuelles et projetées, et à l'interprétation des propositions de réductions. Indépendamment de ces incertitudes, il est anticipé que les engagements pris pour 2020 produiraient des niveaux d’émissions supérieurs à ceux étant compatibles au plafond de 2°C. Cet écart d’émissions pourrait être réduit par la mise en place d'engagements conditionnels plus rigoureux, diminuant ainsi l'emploi de crédits « faciles » issus de forêts et d'unités d’émissions excédentaires, évitant ainsi le double-comptage de compensations carbone et permettant la mise en œuvre de mesures allant au-delà des engagements actuels. Inversement, les gains en réductions d’émissions dans les pays augmentant l'ambition de leurs engagements pourraient être plus que contrebalancés par l'emploi de crédits « faciles » issus de l'utilisation des terres, modification de l'affectation des terres et foresterie (UTMATF), et d'unités d’émissions excédentaires, si ceux-ci étaient employés au maximum. Poser les bases pour accélérer le rythme des réductions d’émissions après 2020 semble crucial dans tous les cas.
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank everyone who has initiated and supported the UNEP Emissions Gap Report, all its authors for the lively and fruitful discussions, and all the modelling groups that provided data.
Notes
Ranges in this paper reflect the 20th to 80th percentile range of results, unless otherwise stated.
Numbers will not add up precisely to the median estimates in Figure 1, as the numbers in this section reflect the median change across studies, rather than the change in the median estimate, which is reflected in Figure 1.
According to our estimates, if the pledges of these countries were treated as unconditional, rather than conditional, the median emissions would be 2.0 GtCO2e lower in the unconditional pledge cases.
Indonesia's high case commitment of 41% is not included in the Copenhagen Accord but was announced prior to COP 15 by the President of Indonesia. Six of the modelling groups reviewed in this assessment have modelled this.
The range of LULUCF estimates for 2020 from different studies are as follows: PIK PRIMAP: from a debit of −0.19 GtCO2e to a credit of 0.46 GtCO2e; the calculation of Party-preferred options yields 0.42 GtCO2e. JRC: from a debit of 0.18 GtCO2e (all activities, forest management with net-net accounting as compared to the first commitment period) to a credit of 0.42 GtCO2e (all activities, forest management with reference levels and without caps).
The uncertainty range is estimate-based on an uncertainty bound of 20% applied to the estimate for drained peatland (±0.3 GtCO2e) and the range of estimates of peat fire emissions (±0.5 GtCO2e).