This working paper outlines three principles that can inform debate on an equitable phase-out of U.S. fossil fuel extraction. In order to avert the most extreme harms of climate change, the world must reduce net carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from all sources — especially fossil fuels — to zero by mid-century.
This paper focuses on the risks associated with “negative emission” techniques for drawing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through photosynthesis and storing it in land-based sinks or underground. It examines what these risks may imply for near-term actions to limit warming to 1.5°C or 2°C above pre-industrial levels.
The term 'carbon lock-in' refers to the tendency for certain carbon-intensive technological systems to persist over time, 'locking out' lower-carbon alternatives, and owing to a combination of linked technical, economic, and institutional factors. These technologies may be costly to build, but relatively inexpensive to operate and, over time, they reinforce political, market, and social factors that make it difficult to move away from, or 'unlock' them.
The impasse in the climate negotiations runs very deep, and is ultimately rooted in the nature and limits of the current development model. That said, there is a great deal that could be done to build momentum and prepare for the global emergency mobilisation that is needed. Up to this point, however, con!icts and tensions between the ‘North’ and the
This report, produced through a partnership between the business leaders’ initiative 3C (Combat Climate Change) and the Stockholm Environment Institute, gauges the availability of biomass for low-carbon energy and other uses in the context of sustainability and competing demands.
Climate policy addresses a global problem, with costs and benefits distributed unevenly around the world. Questions of efficiency and equity are central to the allocation of costs; they are typically handled either by modeling optimal policies based on economic efficiency, or by setting standards that embody principles of equity.
This paper argues that an emergency climate stabilization program is needed, that such a program is only possible if the international effort-sharing impasse is decisively broken, and that this impasse arises from a severe, but nevertheless
