AUDIENCE FOR THIS DOCUMENT: FOEI member groups and their staff only

Temperature Target

  1. What level of temperature increase relative to pre-industrial / 1880 levels, is it appropriate for FoEI to call for, based on our climate justice principles and scientific uncertainties?
  2. Why do you think we should call for this temperature target, as opposed to other options?
  3. How will your member group primarily use this position? (e.g. in public materials? for lobbying? for media work? in discussions and work with allies and social movements?)

Level of risk

  1. What is an acceptable level of risk for the temperature target we are calling for?
  2. Why do you think this should be FoEI’s position?

This process

  • Please include any other comments or information about the involvement of your member group or region on the issue of the global carbon budget which might be of relevance for this internal process in FoEI.

Carbon Budgets Positioning Process – Policy Background / Options Paper

(Version 1 – 26 July 2011)

What is this document?

This is the version 1 of the formal policy background / options paper for the FoEI carbon budgets positioning process. It provides background policy information and scientific modelling on the key decision areas in the forthcoming positioning process on carbon budgets. This version of the document will be used to inform discussions on the first decision area under the process – temperature target and risk. It sets out the main options for discussion / decision in each area where these are clearly identifiable; and includes recommendations to narrow down the options under discussion.

A second version will be circulated at the start of the second phase of discussion on effort-sharing[1] framework and implementation which will commence in September. The second version will include additional information of relevance to the second phase of discussion.

NB. Please note that:

  1. This document is not supposed to be exhaustive. There is a lot more information available which is relevant to this debate and we very much hope that member groups will input additional information into the positioning discussions as they see fit.
  2. While the goal of this positioning process is to agree new binding FoEI positions. However, the recommendations set out in this document for the narrowing of the options under discussion are not binding. Member groups can support options outside of these recommendations if they so wish.

Decision-making on the contents of this paper

This document has been drafted by the Coordinator of the FoEI Climate Justice & Energy Programme Sarah-Jayne Clifton. Support and inputs – including the detailed scientific modelling on the global emissions pathways – were provided by Sivan Kartha, senior scientist at the Stockholm Environment Institute and one of the lead scientists on the chapter on equity in climate mitigation in the forthcoming IPCC report. This document has been reviewed and agreed by the Climate Justice & Energy Steering Group.

Overall Positioning Process

The overall process for this positioning discussion, including the timeline, approach to discussions and decision-making, and how outstanding differences in opinion will ultimately be resolved is set out in the accompanying outline process document distributed alongside this paper. If you have any questions please contact the Climate Justice & Energy Programme Coordinator Sarah-Jayne Clifton: .

DECISION AREA 1: Global temperature target and level of risk:
What level of temperature increase relative to pre-industrial / 1880 levels, with what related level of risk, is it appropriate for FoEI to call for, based on our climate justice principles and scientific uncertainties?
  1. Global Temperature Target

This area is known in the context of the UNFCCC negotiations as the “long-term goal”. It is extremely important from a climate justice perspective because developing countries and poor communities – those who have done the least to cause the problem of climate change –arelikely to bear the brunt of climate impacts, and the likelihood of severe impacts increases with the degree of warming. It is also significant for the subsequent decision area in this positioning process – on effort sharing framework and implementation. Effort-sharing refers to the differing levels of responsibility for reducing emissions assigned to each country in order to meet the global temperature target. This is because the temperature target determines the remaining “carbon budget” – i.e. the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that can still be emitted globally whilst keeping warming below the target temperature.

According to NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, average temperatures have climbed 0.8 degrees Celsius around the world since 1880[2]. However, further warming of 0.6 degrees Celsius is already believed to be locked in without any further increase in the concentration of global greenhouse gas emissions[3]. This means there is a very strong likelihood that exceeding a 1 degree Celsius temperature increase is already unavoidable.

The scientific analysis of the risks associated with different levels of temperature increase is constantly evolving. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – the leading scientific body for the study of climate change – recently updated its analysis on this question. In 2007 it concluded that failing to prevent a 2 degree temperature increase would lead to significant sea level rise, mass extinctions of species, and put millions of people globally at risk of crop failures, water shortages, flooding and homelessness[4].

However, research published in 2009 scaled up the assessment of the risk, with “large-scale discontinuities” - i.e. dangerous tipping points which could give rise to irreversible climate change – now considered moderately significant below 2 degrees on industrial levels (approx 1.4 degrees on 1990 levels, the baseline used in the diagram below) and risks of extreme weather events considered substantial or severe with warming of 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels (approx 0.9 degrees on 1990 levels). Figure 1 below summaries the findings. The diagram shows climate impacts for five different categories from the original IPCC report in 2001 (on the left) and updated in 2009 (on the right). Red corresponds to ‘substantial or severe risks’, and yellow to ‘moderately significant risks’. While some text from this assessment, published by Smith et al (2009), was included by the IPPC, this diagram was not. By some accounts this was because governments were unhappy with how strong an image it presented.

Figure 1. Burning Embers diagram (Smith et al (2009))

Regional variations in warming

Scientists predict there will be a large amount of variation in temperature rise around the world, so that warming will impact differently on different countries and regions with some regions warming considerably more than the global average. The maps below show the distribution in temperature rise for a global average warming of 1.5 degrees (top), and 2 degrees (bottom)[5]. Earlier research from the IPCC has indicated that Africa is amongst the regions expected to face the largest above-average temperature increase, with warming in the region likely to reach around 1.5 times the global average. This means that average warming of 2 degrees could mean 3 degrees of warming for Africa or more[6].

Potential Impacts of Warming

The direct physical impacts of climate change are already being felt and the potential impacts are extremely destructive and wide-ranging, including:

  • sea level rise, including the possible submersion and disappearance of some islands and island nations;
  • the increased incidence of extreme weather events like heavy rainfall, severe floods, droughts, and tropical storms;
  • severe impacts on ecosystems with the significant possibility of mass extinctions;
  • significant changes to and falls in crop yields because of changes to rainfall patterns;
  • increased incidence of water-borne diseases like malaria and dengue fever;
  • changes in vegetation cover, including further loss of rainforest because of changes in rainfall patterns

Vulnerability to climate change depends on the interaction of multiple factors including the regional and local variability in warming levels examined above, on geographical factors like height above sea level, topography, vegetation, and levels of ecosystem degradation; and complex socio-economic factors like poverty levels, governance and institutional conditions, infrastructure, access to markets, finance and technology, and the presence and/or legacy of complex disasters and conflicts.

Because of their physical geography, the impacts of warming will be felt disproportionally by low-lying countries, small island states, and Africa as a region. 2 degrees of warming could threaten the existence of low-lying small island states, and in Africa, the IPCC has indicated that without dramatic action, climate change could lead to:

  • Reductions in crop yields in some countries by as much as 50% by 2020
  • Increased water stress for 75-250 million people by the 2020s, and 350-600 million by the 2050s
  • A cost of adaptation to sea level rise of at least 5-10% of gross domestic product[7].

In terms of geo-physical factors, according to a report by the Global Humanitarian Forum (GHF) on vulnerability to climate change, people who are most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change live in semi-arid dry land belt countries, sub-Saharan Africa, South and Southeast Asia, Latin America, Small island developing states and the Arctic[8].

According to the GHF report, the impacts of climate change are already being strongly felt by large parts of the world. In total, the report estimates that four billion people are vulnerable, 500 million people are at extreme risk, and that climate change is already responsible for forcing some fifty million additional people to go hungry and driving over ten million additional people into extreme poverty[9].

It also estimates that every year climate change leaves over 300,000 people dead, and 325 million people seriously affected, in addition to causing economic losses of US$125 billion. Of the deaths, over nine in ten deaths are related to gradual environmental degradation due to climate change — principally malnutrition, diarrhoea, and malaria – withthe remaining deaths being linked to weather-related disasters brought about by climate change. In terms of future vulnerabilities, it is estimated that lives lost due to climate change could rise to approximately half a million per year within 20 years if impacts are unabated.

Finally, according to the GHF, developing countries currently bear the over-whelming burden of these impacts – 98percent of the seriously affected and 99 percent of all deaths from weather-related disasters, along with over 90 percent of the total economic losses[10].

Options under consideration in the climate talks

At the COP 16 climate talks in Cancun in 2010, UNFCCC countries agreed (without unanimity – Bolivia refused to support the final Cancun outcome) to a target of keeping overall warming below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The Cancun outcome also recognises the need to consider strengthening the long-term goal to a global average temperature rise of 1.5 degrees “on the basis of the best available scientific knowledge” with a review of the temperature goal to be concluded by 2015[11].

In the context of the UNFCCC negotiations, the 2 degree target is supported by most Annex I (developed) countries, while more than 100 developing countries, including the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) and the Africa Group, have called for a target of 1.5 degrees or less. The 1.5 degree call was recently supported by the UN Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres.

In the environmental movement, the Climate Action Network, of which FoEI is no longer a member but some of our members groups are, is now supporting a 1.5 degree target (although it is unclear whether this is an officially agreed CAN position) while many social movements are calling for a target of 1 degree after this target was agreed at the World Peoples Summit on Climate Change in Cochabamba in 2010[12].

FoEI’s current position – Global Temperature Target
FoEI does not currently have an agreed position on our acceptable temperature target. Our closest relevant position is our demand for a total phase out of carbon emissions by mid-century in order to minimise the chances of runaway climate change, and for a return of atmospheric concentrations to an upper limit of 350 parts per million. We are committed to revise this in line with new emerging scientific evidence.
Options for Carbon Budgets Positioning Discussion
It is recommended that FoEI confine our discussion to consideration of whether we want to support at global average temperature target of 1, 1.5 or 2 degrees.
Rationale: The spectrum of 1-2 degrees is the space currently within which the broad spectrum of civil society and scientific discussion is taking place, and there is very little attention to incremental targets such as 1.3 degrees or 1.8 degrees, or available scientific research to support those discussions.
  1. Level of risk

Because of the complexity of the climate system and uncertainties about what emissions reductions are necessary to avoid dangerous climate change, it is not possible to identify an emissions reduction pathway that will lead to a particular temperature change with complete certainty. Instead, computer models are able to identify probabilities arising from particular pathways.

As a result all discussions around temperature targets are underpinned by an assumption about tolerable levels of risk. For example, conditional commitments by the EU and UK to reduce their emissions by 30 per cent and 42 per cent by 2020 are based on a greater than 50% chance of avoiding 2 degrees[13]. It makes no sense to argue about “1.5 vs. 2” degrees without knowing what level of risk is being talked about. It will therefore be necessary for us to pin down what we consider to be an acceptable level of risk as well as what we consider to be an acceptable temperature target.

While the question of the risk or probability of avoiding certain temperature increases is not discussed widely, together with the specific temperature target it defines

the remaining carbon budget available for the entire world, and the emissions reduction pathway, i.e. the pace at which global emissions cuts need to be realised.

This in turn has implications for the implementation of effort-sharing (part of decision area 2 below). By way of example, the following graph shows two possible global emissions reduction paths based on an uncertainty analysis by the C-Roads-CP climate simulation model[14]

Path 1 (the brown path) gives a roughly 35% chance of exceeding 2 degrees of warming by 2100 (i.e. an 65% chance of avoiding 2 degrees), and a roughly 50% chance of exceeding 1.5 degrees of warming in 2100 (i.e. a 50% chance of warming below 1.5 degrees in 2100,though possibly temporarily exceeding 1.5C before 2100).

Path 2 (the green path) gives less than 10% chance of exceeding 2 degrees by 2100 (i.e. a greater than 90% chance of avoiding 2 degrees), and a roughly 15% chance of exceeding 1.5 degrees of warming by 2100 (i.e. a 85% chance of avoiding 1.5 degrees, again with the possibility of temporarily overshooting 1.5C before 2100).

(NB. Path 2 is based on recent analysis by NASA scientist Jim Hansen as to the global carbon budget and emissions reduction pathway necessary to return atmospheric CO2 concentration to 350 parts per million (ppm) – the level identified by increasing numbers of climate experts, and progressive national governments as the safe upper limit for CO2 in our atmosphere).

The red path in the graph shows the business as usual emissions trajectory, which has virtually 100% chance of exceeding – perhaps by a large amount – both 1.5C and 2C by 2100.

The following two graphs and table show what these trajectories would look like in terms of emissions from different sources for the two paths indicated above.

NB. Please note that:

  • The breakdown of emissions reductions between sources is only illustrative and the levels could change between the different sources. We will need to have a conversation about what kind of emissions decreases are possible in different sectors as part of our discussions in phase two of this process on effort-sharing implementation.
  • The peak year used in these graphs is 2015. However, there is some flexibility around the peak year, with the later the peak year, the steeper the subsequent emissions decreases that are needed.

The graph for path 2 indicates that, to realise a <10% chance of exceeding 2 degrees, and a ~15% chance of exceeding 1.5 degrees by 2100, would require global emissions from fossil fuels, fluorinated gases, methane, and nitrous oxide to have been reduced nearly to zero by 2070, and for negative forestry emissions from 2030 onwards. In similar research, the UK AVOID programme has asserted that a 90% chance of staying below 2 degrees will probably necessitate negative emissions and/or some form of geo-engineering intervention[15].

Path 1:

(35% chance of exceeding 2 degrees of warming by 2100 and a roughly 50% chance of exceeding 1.5 degrees of warming by 2100).

Path 2:

(<10% chance of exceeding 2 degrees by 2100 and a roughly 15% chance of exceeding 1.5 degrees of warming by 2100).

Quantities of emissions reductions by source for each path:

Reference / Path 1 / Path 2
Cumulative fossil CO2 / ~7600 GtCO2 / ~1350 GtCO2 / ~820 GtCO2
Cumulative deforestation / ~600 GtCO2 / ~200 GtCO2 / ~150 GtCo2
Cumulative afforestation / ~50 GtCO2 / ~50 GtCo2 / ~370 GtCO2
Cumulative non CO2 / ~2300 GtCO2 / ~500 GtCO2eq / ~340 GtCO2
Cumulative CO2eq / ~10400 GtCO2 / ~2000 GtCO2eq / ~940 GtCO2eq
Probability of exceeding 2C by year 2100 / 100% / ~35% / <10%
Probability of exceeding 1.5C in year 2100 (possibly with temporary overshoot before 2100) / 100% / ~50% / ~15%

Formal definitions of risk levels

The IPCC formally defines a 33 per cent chance of exceeding a certain temperature as “unlikely” and a 10 per cent chance as “very unlikely”.

FoEI’s current position – Level of risk
FoEI does not currently have a position on level of risk, beyond our position above of wanting to minimise the chances of runaway climate change.
Options for Carbon Budgets Positioning Discussion
It is recommended that we consider levels of risk of exceeding a certain temperature threshold at the IPCC definition of ‘unlikely’, (i.e. levels of risk below 33%), or “very unlikely” (i.e. levels of risk below 10%).
Rationale: Not specifying the level of risk for meeting a specific temperature target, or specifying a level of risk that is high (e.g., 50%), would allow for inadequate policy responses that pose a high probability of failing to protect people and the climate.
It is therefore recommended that, for simplicity, we make the decision on temperature target (decision 1 above), our primary decision. It then follows that for our decision on level of risk we would want to achieve a reasonable level of certainty that that temperature target could be realised.
DECISION AREA 2: Effort-sharing and Implementation:
What framework, in line with our agreed positions on historical responsibility and climate debt,should we use for sharing the effort of reducing greenhouse gas emissions between and within countries to achieve our agreed temperature target; and how should this framework be implemented?

NB. The questions above will be the focus of phase 2 of the carbon budgets positioning process starting in September 2011. Before the start of phase 2, a second, updated version of this background policy / options paper will be distributed, with additional background information included of relevance to phase 2 of the discussions.