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A factor of two: how the mitigation plans of ‘climate progressive nations’ fall far short of Paris-compliant pathways
Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, Earth Sciences, Department of Earth Sciences, Natural Resources and Sustainable Development. Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, Earth Sciences, Department of Earth Sciences, CEMUS. Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden;Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, School of Engineering, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK. (Naturresurser och hållbar utveckling)ORCID iD: 0000-0003-0718-7544
University of Manchester, Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research.ORCID iD: 0000-0003-1486-9789
Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, Earth Sciences, Department of Earth Sciences, Natural Resources and Sustainable Development. Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, Earth Sciences, Department of Earth Sciences, CEMUS. Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden. (Naturresurser och hållbar utveckling)ORCID iD: 0000-0003-4609-8544
2020 (English)In: Climate Policy, ISSN 1469-3062, E-ISSN 1752-7457, Vol. 20, no 10, p. 1290-1304Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

The Paris Agreement establishes an international covenant to reduce emissions in line with holding the increase in temperature to 'well below 2 degrees C horizontal ellipsis and to pursue horizontal ellipsis 1.5 degrees C.' Global modelling studies have repeatedly concluded that such commitments can be delivered through technocratic adjustments to contemporary society, principally price mechanisms driving technical change. However, as emissions have continued to rise, so these models have come to increasingly rely on the extensive deployment of highly speculative negative emissions technologies (NETs). Moreover, in determining the mitigation challenges for industrialized nations, scant regard is paid to the language and spirit of equity enshrined in the Paris Agreement. If, instead, the mitigation agenda of 'developed country Parties' is determined without reliance on planetary scale NETs and with genuine regard for equity and 'common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities', the necessary rates of mitigation increase markedly. This is evident even when considering the UK and Sweden, two nations at the forefront of developing 'progressive' climate change legislation and with clear emissions pathways and/or quantitative carbon budgets. In both cases, the carbon budgets underpinning mitigation policy are halved, the immediate mitigation rate is increased to over 10% per annum, and the time to deliver a fully decarbonized energy system is brought forward to 2035-40. Such a challenging mitigation agenda implies profound changes to many facets of industrialized economies. This conclusion is not drawn from political ideology, but rather is a direct consequence of the international community's obligations under the Paris Agreement and the small and rapidly dwindling global carbon budget. Key Policy Insights Without a belief in the successful deployment of planetary scale negative emissions technologies, double-digit annual mitigation rates are required of developed countries, from 2020, if they are to align their policies with the Paris Agreement's temperature commitments and principles of equity. Paris-compliant carbon budgets for developed countries imply full decarbonization of energy by 2035-40, necessitating a scale of change in physical infrastructure reminiscent of the post-Second World War Marshall Plan. This brings issues of values, measures of prosperity and socio-economic inequality to the fore. The stringency of Paris-compliant pathways severely limits the opportunity for inter-sectoral emissions trading. Consequently aviation, as with all sectors, will need to identify policies to reduce emissions to zero, directly or through the use of zero carbon fuels. The UK and Swedish governments' emissions pathways imply a carbon budget of at least a factor of two greater than their fair contribution to delivering on the Paris Agreement's 1.5-2 degrees C commitment.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Taylor & Francis Group, 2020. Vol. 20, no 10, p. 1290-1304
National Category
Climate Science
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-400707DOI: 10.1080/14693062.2020.1728209ISI: 000541291400001OAI: oai:DiVA.org:uu-400707DiVA, id: diva2:1382221
Funder
Swedish Energy Agency, 46532-1Available from: 2020-01-02 Created: 2020-01-02 Last updated: 2025-02-07Bibliographically approved
In thesis
1. Perilous times: Carbon budgets and the cosmopolitics of climate mitigation
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Perilous times: Carbon budgets and the cosmopolitics of climate mitigation
2025 (English)Doctoral thesis, comprehensive summary (Other academic)
Abstract [en]

Increasingly emphatic warnings from scientists about the dire consequences of global climate change has contributed to the establishment of an international governance regime and a world-wide proliferation of policies and actions that in different ways attempt to mitigate the problem. However, the decades that have passed since the publication of the first IPCC report in 1990, have been beset by an inexorable rise in global greenhouse gas emissions, with more fossil carbon anthropogenically released into the atmosphere than previously throughout history. With the cumulative nature of emissions and rapidly dwindling size of global carbon budgets, achieving mitigation at rates concomitant with the Paris Agreement becomes increasingly urgent and challenging as time passes. This thesis explores the imaginaries, temporalities and practices involved in historical and ongoing efforts to mitigate climate change at global as well as national, regional and local levels in Sweden. The climate policy framework of Sweden is first analysed and found to fall far short of delivering on the temperature and equity commitments of the Paris Agreement. Factors contributing to the absence of a globally proportionate response are then reviewed, where a key impediment to mitigation is found to reside in various forms of power – from a dogmatic political-economic hegemony and influential vested interests to narrow techno-economic mindsets and ideologies of control. Attention is then shifted to the Swedish counties of Uppsala and Gotland, where the temporalities of urgency and acceleration accompanying emerging (net) zero carbon imaginaries are seen to have the paradoxical effect of raising fundamental and difficult questions for regional planning while also risking to undermine its capacity for envisioning alternative futures. Moving closer to the ground, a series of walking interviews reveals everyday possibilities for escaping ineffective and extractive responses to the climate crisis amongst practitioners involved in the ongoing urban development of Ulleråker, in the city of Uppsala. The findings of this thesis collectively suggest that our times are perilous in at least three ways: In the escalating effects of the climate crisis, in the responses conceived to address the problem, and in the forms of attention that the accompanying temporalities give rise to.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, 2025. p. 88
Series
Digital Comprehensive Summaries of Uppsala Dissertations from the Faculty of Science and Technology, ISSN 1651-6214 ; 2495
Keywords
climate mitigation, carbon budgets, energy transitions, Paris Agreement, equity, negative emission technologies, sociotechnical imaginaries, temporalities, social acceleration, regional planning, urban development, walking interviews, ecology of practices, ecological attunement, cosmopolitics.
National Category
Climate Science Peace and Conflict Studies Other Social Sciences not elsewhere specified
Research subject
Natural Resources and Sustainable Development
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-547881 (URN)978-91-513-2359-6 (ISBN)
Public defence
2025-03-07, Hambergsalen, Geocentrum, Villavägen 16, Uppsala, 10:00 (English)
Opponent
Supervisors
Funder
Swedish Energy Agency, 46532-1
Available from: 2025-02-14 Created: 2025-01-20 Last updated: 2025-02-20

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Anderson, KevinStoddard, Isak

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