The Paris Agreement global goals: What does a fair share for G20 countries look like?

The Paris Agreement global goals: What does a fair share for G20 countries look like?

Author: Yann Robiou du Pont12
1 Australian-German Climate and Energy College
2 EU Centre on shared complex challenges
Download full report here.

This report reviews the literature to compare the socio-economic implications and climate impacts of achieving each of the Paris Agreement temperature goals: 1.5 °C and 2 °C. Drawing on a recent publication (Robiou du Pont, Jeffery, Gütschow, et al., Nature Climate Change, 2017) and its related website Paris-equity-check.org, this report then examines the scenarios to reduce greenhouse-gases (GHG) emissions consistent with the Paris global goals.

Finally, this report presents greenhouse-gases (GHG) emissions targets for G20 members consistent with the five effort sharing categories contained in the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and compares the equity performances of their climate pledges against their own declarations on equity.

The Paris Agreement global goals: What does a fair share for G20 countries look like?Key findings

  • The pledges of the G20 members are collectively insufficient to meet any concept of equity
  • Collectively, G20 pledges for 2030 should be lower by 39 percent (of 2010 levels) to align with the average of the five equity concepts under the 2 °C goal, and 63 percentage lower under the 1.5 °C goal
  • The G20 can close the 2030 mitigation gap towards 2 °C and considerably reduce the gap towards 1.5 °C by adopting the average of the five equity allocations
  • Brazil and Mexico are the most ambitious countries towards the 2 °C goal with pledges within the range of four out of five equity allocations, followed by the EU whose 2030 pledge is within the range of three
  • The pledges of Russia, China, Turkey and Saudi Arabia are weaker than any equity allocation
Documents: 
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PDF icon Paris Agreement - Fair share for G20 countries.pdf1.89 MB

Web tools and Projects we developed

  • Open-NEM

    The live tracker of the Australian electricity market.

  • Paris Equity Check

    This website is based on a Nature Climate Change study that compares Nationally Determined Contributions with equitable national emissions trajectories in line with the five categories of equity outlined by the IPCC.

  • liveMAGICC Climate Model

    Run one of the most popular reduced-complexity climate carbon cycle models online. Used by IPCC, UNEP GAP reports and numerous scientific publications.

  • NDC & INDC Factsheets

    Check out our analysis of all the post-2020 targets that countries announced under the Paris Agreement.