Panel discussion BBL: Rapid decarbonization and a 2°C goal – Can we get to the 2-degree-C goal for the Paris Agreement?

Can we get to the 2-degree-C goal for the Paris Agreement?<br/><br/>The Paris Agreement is a pledge to take action to hold “the increase in … temperature to well below 2°C … and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C”. <br/><br/>The scale of the mitigation necessary to deliver on the Paris Agreement is massive. Issues of equity and the risks of further carbon cycle feedbacks have been ignored by the academic community working on mitigation, according to Kevin Anderson of the Tyndall Centre (http://www.tyndall.ac.uk/people/kevin-anderson) who argues that “the guidance offered by academics has typically embraced speculative negative emissions technologies rather than question the dominant socio-economic model.”<br/><br/><p>Anderson, who is also Professor of Energy and Climate Change at University of Manchester and the Zennström CCL professor at Uppsala University (http://www.csduppsala.se/ccleadership/) promises to “[eschew] political sensibilities [and] demonstrate how delivering on even a conservative interpretation of the Paris Agreement implies fundamental system change far beyond anything countenanced within the academic or political communities. [He] will conclude by laying out the scale and scope of the profound changes required if we are not to renege on our 2°C commitments.”</p><br/>Kevin Noone of the Department of Environmental Science and Analytical Chemistry (ACES) at Stockholm University will join the discussion, as will members of the SRC community. Noone is Chair of the Transdisciplinary Advisory Board for the European Joint Programming Initiative on Climate, among his other leading roles on climate and Earth systems science and policy. <p><br/></p><p>Miriam Huitric (http://www.stockholmresilience.org/contact-us/staff/2008-01-08-huitric.html) is head of education for SRC’s Master’s Programme, and contributed to the recent Arctic Resilience Report (http://arctic-council.org/arr/)<br/><br/>Before you come to what promises to be a lively discussion, take a moment to read the article in Science on how to get to “negative emissions” using a Carbon Law, or check out the synopses on the SRC website: <br/>http://science.sciencemag.org/content/354/6309/182<br/>http://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/research-news/2017-03-23-curbing-emissions-with-a-new-carbon-law.html</p>