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A human-scale perspective on global warming: Zero emission year and personal quotas
- Source :
- PLoS ONE, Vol 12, Iss 6, p e0179705 (2017), PLoS ONE
- Publication Year :
- 2017
- Publisher :
- Public Library of Science (PLoS), 2017.
-
Abstract
- This article builds on the premise that human consumption of goods, food and transport are the ultimate drivers of climate change. However, the nature of the climate change problem (well described as a tragedy of the commons) makes it difficult for individuals to recognise their personal duty to implement behavioural changes to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Consequently, this article aims to analyse the climate change issue from a human-scale perspective, in which each of us has a clearly defined personal quota of CO2 emissions that limits our activity and there is a finite time during which CO2 emissions must be eliminated to achieve the "well below 2°C" warming limit set by the Paris Agreement of 2015 (COP21). Thus, this work's primary contribution is to connect an equal per capita fairness approach to a global carbon budget, linking personal levels with planetary levels. Here, we show that a personal quota of 5.0 tons of CO2 yr-1 p-1 is a representative value for both past and future emissions; for this level of a constant per-capita emissions and without considering any mitigation, the global accumulated emissions compatible with the "well below 2°C" and 2°C targets will be exhausted by 2030 and 2050, respectively. These are references years that provide an order of magnitude of the time that is left to reverse the global warming trend. More realistic scenarios that consider a smooth transition toward a zero-emission world show that the global accumulated emissions compatible with the "well below 2°C" and 2°C targets will be exhausted by 2040 and 2080, respectively. Implications of this paper include a return to personal responsibility following equity principles among individuals, and a definition of boundaries to the personal emissions of CO2.
- Subjects :
- Greenhouse Effect
Atmospheric Science
010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences
Natural resource economics
Physiology
Climate Change
Climate change
lcsh:Medicine
Transportation
010501 environmental sciences
Research and Analysis Methods
01 natural sciences
Global Warming
Greenhouse Gases
Economics
Per capita
Medicine and Health Sciences
Environmental Chemistry
Humans
Greenhouse effect
lcsh:Science
0105 earth and related environmental sciences
Climatology
Behavior
Multidisciplinary
Equity (economics)
business.industry
Simulation and Modeling
Global warming
Environmental resource management
Ecology and Environmental Sciences
lcsh:R
Tragedy of the commons
Chemical Compounds
Food Consumption
Temperature
Biology and Life Sciences
Carbon Dioxide
Chemistry
Climate change mitigation
Greenhouse gas
Atmospheric Chemistry
Physical Sciences
Earth Sciences
Engineering and Technology
lcsh:Q
business
Physiological Processes
Research Article
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 19326203
- Volume :
- 12
- Issue :
- 6
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- PLoS ONE
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....265745230148873bfc1cd469c97eb5ec