Achieving net‐zero emissions targets: An analysis of long‐term scenarios using an integrated assessment model

Abstract

More than 100 countries have communicated or adopted new Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and net-zero target pledges. We investigate the impact on global, national, sectoral, and individual greenhouse gas emissions projections under different scenarios based on the announced NDCs and net-zero pledges using the IMAGE integrated assessment model. Our results show that while the net-zero pledges, if implemented, could be an important step forward, they are still not enough to achieve the Paris Agreement goals of well below 2 • C and preferably 1.5 • C by the end of the century. Still, our net-zero scenarios project significant all-sector decarbonization, in particular, electricity; however, certain sectors like industry and transport prove hard to completely abate.

Optimal electric vehicle scheduling in unbalanced distribution system by spatial and temporal data mining and bi‐level particle swarm optimisation

“…The event matrix illustrates the different charging behaviour of EV users in terms of their initial charging status triggered at various points in the distribution system at any given time by using previously analysed data to create a matrix of charging opportunities for each node and time, as defined in (1). The charging probabilities at each node and time are a sub-matrix that forms charging probabilities for each phase at various locations (i.e., homes, workplaces, and public charging stations) at each node, as illustrated in (2), and the elements of this sub-matrix can be calculated by (3).…”

“…Electric vehicles (EVs) are emerging as a pivotal solution in reducing emissions in the global transportation sector, which accounted for approximately 37% of CO 2 emissions in 2021 [1]. Many countries have set goals to achieve carbon neutrality and net zero emissions by 2050, in an effort to combat climate change [2]. To achieve this target, EVs are playing an essential role in increasing energy efficiency, lowering dependence on oil, and improving local air quality.…”

Specifying the Gap between Nations’ Outward-Looking and Domestic Climate Policies: A Call for Measures of Domestic Climate Policy Stringency

“…No one really knows how much domestic policy has assumed the leadership vacated by the international system, however, as domestic governments have not yet under the Paris Agreement been held accountable by disclosing emission reductions to the UN. Modelers do update projections periodically (see, for example, [4,5,32] for recent updates), but these offer a scholarly record more than a policymaker baseline for negotiations. At present, the only means of holding governments accountable "in real time" are revised estimates by climate modelers, such as the Climate Action Tracker [33] and Climate Interactive [34], extrapolating revised emissions projections from national leader declarations and pledges at UN meetings.…”

“…In September 2021, he declared, upon release of a new report on the lack of ambition by member nations in cutting emissions (UNFCCC 2021), that "the world is on a catastrophic pathway" [2]. The Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had issued increasingly urgent pleas for an immediate scaling up of climate mitigation (2018,2023), and modelers warn that while UN pledges have dropped warming projections from about 3 degrees Celsius [3] to about 2 degrees Celsius [4,5], this is still a good deal higher than the best case scenario of 1.5 degrees Celsius warming by the end of the 21st Century (measured as average temperature change from 1850 to 2099).…”

COP29: Technology development and transfer framework

“…The said paragraph 1 of the same Article only mentions that "Parties share a long-term vision on the importance of fully realizing technology development and transfer in order to improve resilience to climate change and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions." These paragraphs do set some preliminary direction for the future working on technology development and transfer between party countries but the overall working pace for achieving the PA goal-1.5-degree Celsius pre-industrial levels-is not consistent (Kirchherr and Urban, 2018;Tanaka and O'Neill, 2018;Fu et al, 2022;Dafnomilis et al, 2023;Sattar, 2023). Thus innovating climate technologies require further rules of procedures both from the policy and practice side (Matos et al, 2022;Sharman, 2022).…”