Our short programme of interdisciplinary policy-relevant research is our contribution to the IPCC Special Report on 1.5°C that will deliver in September 2018. Our work completes in April 2018. Relatively little is known about 1.5°C of the Paris Agreement because previous UN negotiations have focused on agreeing 2°C. We are contributing our research to improve scientific understanding of the implications of an increase in global temperature of 1.5°C and 2°C [relative to pre-industrial levels], to help inform UK and international climate policy on the implications of the Paris Agreement. We are assessing the environmental, economic and societal impacts and risks of the mitigation actions and resulting climate change impacts. This programme is a collaboration of Tyndall Centre researchers from UEA, Manchester, Southampton, Cardiff, and Utrecht University (Netherlands) and the Center for International Climate Research (CICERO, Norway).
Professor Rachel Warren at the Tyndall Centre at the University of East Anglia is one of the Authors contributing to the IPCC Special Report. The UK’s Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) has a sister project Pathway and Impacts also part-funded by BEIS.
Project contact at Tyndall – Asher Minns, the programme is led by Prof Corinne Le Quéré.
Our programme has three overarching themes:
1. Decarbonisation of the global economy to meet the Paris Agreement
2. Impacts of temperature rise of 1.5°C and 2°C
3. Implications of the Paris Agreement
We are addressing these 3 themes with three research questions for analysis 1) What are rates of Decarbonisation and the timing of zero emissions? 2) What are the risks, opportunities and challenges of technology and economic transformations 3) What are the impacts of 1.5oC and 2oC? We also publish a Final Report and communicate our findings as they become available.
We currently have several papers in review to journals that cannot yet be made available here due to embargo dates. We will publish each of them here when they become available.
This is our first publication a Briefing Note about the IMAGE Integrated Assessment model that underpins our scenario analyses. Limiting Global Temperature Change to 1.5°C: Implications for carbon budgets, emission pathways, and energy transitions by Detlef van Vuuren, Andries Hof, David Gernaat, Harmen Sytze de Boer