Browsing by Author "Weaver, Sally"

In this thesis the changed paradigm of international climate policy from negotiated top-down targets of the Kyoto era to the new, Paris Agreement bottom-up mitigation contributions, NDCs is introduced. NDCs are submitted to the UNFCCC on the basis of what countries consider as their fair share of efforts in line with global warming targets, equity considerations and national circumstances. This means that normative decisions on fairness need to be made when selecting a long-term target required by the Paris Agreement. For this purpose, a framework was developed for considering some of the key issues that emerge in examining long-term climate policy. Different equity measures exist for assessing fairness, of which Equality, Ability to Pay and Historic Responsibility were selected as the ones to consider, since they are the most unambiguous as formulas and are the most prevalent in carbon budget allocation studies. The Paris Agreement temperature targets can be calculated into carbon budgets, of which the most recent IPCC estimation for the 1.5 degree budget was selected and subsequent global emissions subtracted from. To be able to consider all sources and sinks of GHGs, the carbon budgets are applied GHG budgets instead of purely carbon budgets and all emissions and sinks reported in national GHG inventories are included, which are reported in line with IPCC 2006 guidelines. While not a completely accurate utilisation of the carbon budget, this approach is sufficient for examining climate policy ambition. The equity calculations for allocating the GHG budget to countries for the period of 2020-2050 produced an emissions reduction pathway while the land-use sector net sink was kept fixed according to the historical average with an illustrative pathway for required additional emissions removals. These results were presented in graphs, and key figures pointed out, such as the mitigation rate, the year GHG neutrality occurs, what the 2050 end result is as a reduction of emissions compared to 1990, and at what rate emissions removals are required to increase. The goal of suggesting a long-term climate policy target in line with climate science, equity and 1.5 global carbon budget was successful in part; all the set conditions were successfully applied and a calculation alongside a demonstrative graph with specific key targets was produced. However, some of the results were unrealistic for applying to real life conditions, such as the amount of emissions removals required in some cases. Mitigation rates, which were fixed as linear, were very drastic in some cases, which might not be possible in present conditions. Contrary to what initially was set out to discover, GHG neutrality targets to be achieved in the 2030s for most cases transpire as the most significant result. GHG neutrality is however only a milestone toward a long-term target, which based on these case studies is a significantly over 100% emissions reduction target.