Charting the Earth’s future for the 21st century
In 2015 the Paris Agreement specified the need for its nearly 200 signatory nations to implement greenhouse gas emissions reduction policies consistent with keeping the increase in the global average temperature since preindustrial times to well below 2 degrees Celsius — and pursue efforts to further limit that increase to 1.5 C. Recognizing that the initial, near-term Paris pledges, known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), are inadequate by themselves to put the globe on track to achieve those goals and thus avoid the worst consequences of climate change, the agreement calls for participating nations to strengthen their NDCs over time. Toward that end, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a special report on Oct. 8 on pathways to achieving the 1.5 C goal, and the next Conference of the Parties (COP24) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) convenes in December. In line with these developments, the MIT Joint Program on the Science and...