Glasgow to Paris-The impact of the Glasgow commitments for the Paris climate agreement

Lara Aleluia Reis; Massimo Tavoni

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2023.105933

Glasgow to Paris-The impact of the Glasgow commitments for the Paris climate agreement

iScience. 2023 Jan 6;26(2):105933. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.105933. eCollection 2023 Feb 17.

Authors

Lara Aleluia Reis¹, Massimo Tavoni^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ RFF-CMCC European Institute on Economics and the Environment (EIEE), Centro Euro-Mediterraneo sui Cambiamenti Climatici (CMCC), Milan, Italy.
² Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy.

Abstract

In the Glasgow COP26, several major emitters have announced new climate neutrality commitments. Others revised their nationally determined contributions (NDC). The climate, energy, and economic repercussion of these revised pledges is still unclear. Here, using a detailed-process integrated assessment model (WITCH), we analyze the impact of the Glasgow net-zero commitments and compare it to scenarios consistent with the Paris' agreement. We find that-if fully implemented-the Glasgow strategies would help close the gap to 2 $°$ C , covering more than 80% of the world's needed emission reductions by 2070. The pledged commitments would exceed 1.5°C, with a temperature increase (50% likelihood) of 1.6 $°$ C- 1.8 $°$ C by the end of the century. We find that the Glasgow net-zero pledges would require substantial increases in investment in electric transportation and power generation in all major economies. Compared to a scenario with uniform carbon taxation, Glasgow differentiated pledges' do not significantly increase global policy costs, are more fair, and save more lives by promoting cleaner air. However, they delay coal phase-out and increase the need for negative emission technologies.

Keywords: Energy policy; Environmental policy; Environmental science.