![]() ![]() Some of Mission 2020’s goals, such as ramping up the sale of electric vehicles to 15% of all vehicle sales in the next three years, are likely to very challenging to achieve.Ĭarbon Brief has reached out to climate scientists and energy researchers to gather their thoughts on the proposal.ĭr Katherine Richardson, professor in biological oceanography at the University of Copenhagen and one of the coauthors of the comment, suggests that: It comes at a time when, paradoxically, the US is withdrawing from the international process, whereas some other countries are more firmly committing to emission reductions. ![]() ![]() Mission 2020’s set of proposals are sweeping and would represent a major ratcheting up of international commitments to tackling climate change. They suggest that the upcoming G20 meeting in Hamburg on 7-8 July should take up the goal of rapid transformation by 2020. One proposal is for scientific societies and associations to set up communication “boot camps” to help researchers make their science relevant to businesses and policymakers.įinally, they suggest that optimism be encouraged and that there be more focus on the solutions rather than the problems. Mobilise at least $1tn a year for climate mitigation and adaptation, mostly in the form of private investments, but with some government efforts to help set up “green bonds”.Īdditionally, they suggest that a new focus on communication of climate science and mitigation solutions, stressing more accessible approaches than dense, oft-esoteric journal articles. Heavy industries should plan to cut emissions in half by 2050. They suggest cutting global deforestation to near zero by 2030 and focusing on agriculture practices that can sequester CO2 in soils. They also suggest a doubling of mass-transit utilisation in cities, a 20% increase in fuel efficiencies for heavy-duty vehicles and a 20% decrease in greenhouse-gas emissions from aviation per kilometre travelled.Įnact policies that reduce deforestation and encourage more forest growth. They also propose that no new coal-fired power plants be built anywhere in the world after 2020 and all existing coal plants begin being retired.Ĭountries should commit $300bn annually to help cities and states fully decarbonise buildings and infrastructure by 2050, with cities upgrading at least 3% of their building stock to zero- or near-zero emissions structures each year.Įlectric vehicles should make up at least 15% of new car sales globally, up from around 1% today. Renewables should make up at least 30% of total global electricity generation in 2020, up from 23.7% in 2015. Specifically, they propose focusing on six milestones across different sectors to achieve significant progress over the next three years: Mission 2020 supporters suggest that the world harnesses the momentum of the Paris Agreement, as well as the current declines in emissions of many countries and the expansion of renewable energy. Even a 2020 peak still requires net-zero global emissions 20 years later in 2040. In the absence of geoengineering or large-scale deployment of negative emission technologies, peaking global emissions after 2020 would provide too little time to transform the global economy.įor example, as the figure below shows, if emissions were to peak in 2025, they would have to decline to zero globally in a mere 10 years. Scientists say that to stave off potentially dangerous levels of warming later in the century, global emissions need to decline quickly to near-zero. However, peaking global emissions is in many ways the easy part. While it is likely too early to say for certain if CO2 emissions have peaked, there is a reason to be cautiously optimistic. Over the past three years, global CO2 emissions have leveled off, driven in part by large declines in coal use in China and the US. Emissions peakįigueres and colleagues argue that, if global warming is to be limited to between 1.5C and 2C by 2100, global emissions must peak before 2020 and then begin to rapidly decline. The commentary is endorsed by 61 signatories, which include climate scientists as well as a range of NGO, religious, political and business leaders. Today, in a co-authored commentary published in the journal Nature, Figueres sets out further details about Mission 2020’s six central calls to action. The aim of Mission 2020 is to bring “new urgency” to the “global climate conversation” with a call to begin “rapidly declining” global greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. In April, a new global initiative called Mission 2020 was launched by Christiana Figueres, the former UN climate chief who oversaw the signing of the Paris Agreement on climate change in late 2015. ![]()
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