Land-based Mitigation and the Paris Agreement

Introduction

Land-based mitigation plays a crucial role in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement’s goal of reaching climate neutrality. It involves balancing anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) with the removals of carbon sinks. However, there is a gap in the accounting methods used by countries and global scientific models, making it challenging to assess collective progress under the Paris Agreement’s periodic assessment known as the Global Stocktake.

The Study

A new paper published in Nature, led by IIASA and co-authored by the Joint Research Centre (JRC), aims to address this gap and ensure accurate assessment of progress without “comparing apples and oranges.” The study utilizes the OSCAR climate model to align global pathways with countries’ greenhouse inventories. It reveals that emission benchmarks become more challenging when using countries’ definition of anthropogenic sinks.

Key Findings

The study highlights that achieving net-zero emissions must happen faster, up to five years before previously estimated target dates. This means that the remaining global carbon budget compatible with the Paris Agreement’s goal needs to be reduced. The study also warns against relying too heavily on land CO₂ sinks for national climate targets, as they may become a net source of emissions by the end of this century. The CO₂ fertilization effect that currently drives the land sink is expected to decline in low-warming scenarios, while the negative impacts of climate change may increase.

Recommendations

• Ensure transparency in the expected land sector contribution to national climate targets.
• Clarify countries’ deforestation pledges.
• Establish an “operational translation system” for better understanding between scientific and practitioner communities.
• Incorporate the alignment proposed in this study in future Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports.

Implications

This study emphasizes the importance of measuring progress in a like-for-like manner, especially considering the urgent need for drastic emissions cuts to stay within the Paris Agreement limits. The findings provide critical information for the forthcoming COP28, where the Global Stocktake of the Paris Agreement will assess collective climate progress, and for the next round of countries’ climate pledges, expected within two years.

National Inventories vs Global Models

A previous study led by the JRC highlighted a large discrepancy in estimates of land use CO₂ fluxes between global models and national greenhouse inventories. This discrepancy arises from differences in defining anthropogenic forest CO₂ sinks and areas of managed land. National GHG inventories include the response of land to human-caused environmental changes, while global models treat this response as part of the non-anthropogenic sink. Consistent definitions are crucial for assessing collective climate progress and determining the remaining carbon budget under the Paris Agreement.

Related Links

• Aligning climate scenarios to emissions inventories shifts global benchmarks
• Critical adjustment of land mitigation pathways for assessing countries’ climate progress

SDGs, Targets, and Indicators

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Source: joint-research-centre.ec.europa.eu

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