Warmly welcome to this CEFO* seminar with Uppsala university’s Zennström Professor Kevin Anderson and colleagues Jesse Schrage and Isak Stoddard.
When: Tuesday February 27, 10.15-12.00
Where: CEMUS Library, Villavägen 16, Uppsala
Presenters: Kevin Anderson, Jesse Schrage, Isak Stoddard, CEMUS, Uppsala University and SLU.
Pathways to fossil free futures – Regional carbon budgets, Paris and 2C mitigation
The Paris Agreement on climate change delivered an unprecedented covenant amongst world leaders to take action to hold “the increase in … temperature to well below 2°C … and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C.” It also acknowledged the need “to undertake rapid reductions [in greenhouse gas emissions] in accordance with the best available science […] and on the basis of equity”.
In the spring of 2017, the Centre for Environment and Development Studies (CEMUS) and the Zennström professorship in Climate Change Leadership2, were asked to calculate the carbon budget of the Swedish municipality of Järfälla and the associated emission reductions required for them to embark on a pathway to a post-carbon future in line with the climate commitments in the Paris Agreement. This commissioned research led to a report that was designed to inform the energy- and climate plan that the municipality had been asked to write.
The carbon budgets provided by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Synthesis Report (AR5) were used as a basis for calculating the emission-space left at the global level to deliver on the temperature commitments enshrined in the Paris Agreement. The global carbon budget was then disaggregated to provide Sweden with a national carbon budget range based on a suite of apportionment regimes. This budget range was subsequently further divided to the regional level and translated into a small family of emission pathways necessary for the municipality to make its equitable contribution to delivering on the commitments enshrined in the Paris Agreement.
In the seminar we will discusses the methodology used to calculate regional carbon budgets and explore the Järfälla case alongside nascent work in the U.K., as illustrative examples of the challenges and opportunities underlying the interaction and learning that takes place between climate change research and governance.
The report to Järfälla Kommun can be downloaded here (in Swedish).
*CEFO is CEMUS Research Forum and is now organized within the emerging research environment around the Zennström Professorship in Climate Change Leadership at Uppsala University.