TY  - JOUR
A1  - Strefler, Jessica
A1  - Kriegler, Elmar
A1  - Bauer, Nico
A1  - Luderer, Gunnar
A1  - Pietzcker, Robert C.
A1  - Giannousakis, Anastasis
A1  - Edenhofer, Ottmar
T1  - Alternative carbon price trajectories can avoid excessive carbon removal
T2  - Nature communications
N2  - The large majority of climate change mitigation scenarios that hold warming below 2 °C show high deployment of carbon dioxide removal (CDR), resulting in a peak-and-decline behavior in global temperature. This is driven by the assumption of an exponentially increasing carbon price trajectory which is perceived to be economically optimal for meeting a carbon budget. However, this optimality relies on the assumption that a finite carbon budget associated with a temperature target is filled up steadily over time. The availability of net carbon removals invalidates this assumption and therefore a different carbon price trajectory should be chosen. We show how the optimal carbon price path for remaining well below 2 °C limits CDR demand and analyze requirements for constructing alternatives, which may be easier to implement in reality. We show that warming can be held at well below 2 °C at much lower long-term economic effort and lower CDR deployment and therefore lower risks if carbon prices are high enough in the beginning to ensure target compliance, but increase at a lower rate after carbon neutrality has been reached.
KW  - climate-change mitigation
KW  - climate sciences
KW  - environmental sciences
Y1  - 2021
UR  - https://publishup.uni-potsdam.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/62067
SN  - 2041-1723
VL  - 12
IS  - 1
PB  - Nature Publishing Group
CY  - London
ER  -