Alternative carbon price trajectories can avoid excessive carbon removal
- 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 ensureThe 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.…
Author details: | Jessica StreflerORCiDGND, Elmar KrieglerORCiDGND, Nico BauerORCiDGND, Gunnar LudererORCiDGND, Robert C. PietzckerORCiD, Anastasis Giannousakis, Ottmar EdenhoferORCiDGND |
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DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-22211-2 |
ISSN: | 2041-1723 |
Pubmed ID: | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33859170 |
Title of parent work (English): | Nature communications |
Publisher: | Nature Publishing Group |
Place of publishing: | London |
Publication type: | Article |
Language: | English |
Date of first publication: | 2021/01/15 |
Publication year: | 2021 |
Release date: | 2024/01/09 |
Tag: | climate sciences; climate-change mitigation; environmental sciences |
Volume: | 12 |
Issue: | 1 |
Article number: | 2264 |
Number of pages: | 8 |
Funding institution: | the German Research Foundation (DFG) Priority Programme (SPP) 1689 (CEMICS2) German Research Foundation (DFG) |
Funding institution: | European Union, European Commission [821124] |
Organizational units: | Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Wirtschaftswissenschaften / Fachgruppe Volkswirtschaftslehre |
DDC classification: | 5 Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik / 50 Naturwissenschaften / 500 Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik |
Peer review: | Referiert |
Publishing method: | Open Access / Gold Open-Access |
DOAJ gelistet | |
License (German): | CC-BY - Namensnennung 4.0 International |