The role of prior assumptions in carbon budget calculations

Cumulative emissions budgets and net-zero emission target dates are often used to frame climate negotiations (Frame et al., 2014; Millar et al., 2016; Van Vuuren et al., 2016; Rogelj et al., 2015b; Matthews et al., 2012). However, their utility for near-term policy decisions is confounded by uncertainties in future negative emissions capacity (Fuss et al., 2014; Smith et al., 2016; Larkin et al., 2018; Anderson and Peters, 2016), in the role of non-CO2 forcers (MacDougall et al., 2015) and in the long-term Earth system response to forcing (Rugenstein et al., 2019; Knutti et al., 2017; Armour, 2017). Such uncertainties may impact the utility of an absolute carbon budget if peak temperatures occur significantly after net-zero emissions are achieved, the likelihood of which is shown here to be conditional on prior assumptions about the long-term dynamics of the Earth system. In the context of these uncertainties, we show that the necessity and scope for negative emissions deployment later in the century can be conditioned on near-term emissions, providing support for a scenario framework which focuses on emissions reductions rather than absolute budgets (Rogelj et al., 2019b).

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Author Sanderson, Benjamin
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Publication Date 2020-06-25T00:00:00
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Metadata Date 2025-07-11T19:18:05.598573
Metadata Record Identifier edu.ucar.opensky::articles:23460
Metadata Language eng; USA
Suggested Citation Sanderson, Benjamin. (2020). The role of prior assumptions in carbon budget calculations. UCAR/NCAR - Library. https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7nk3j7s. Accessed 02 August 2025.

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