{"id":267552,"date":"2019-10-01T10:30:54","date_gmt":"2019-10-01T14:30:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/issues\/no-partys-climate-plan-will-avoid-dangerous-global-warming-levels\/"},"modified":"2025-10-07T22:40:45","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T02:40:45","slug":"no-partys-climate-plan-will-avoid-dangerous-global-warming-levels","status":"publish","type":"issues","link":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/2019\/10\/no-partys-climate-plan-will-avoid-dangerous-global-warming-levels\/","title":{"rendered":"No party\u2019s climate plan will avoid dangerous global warming levels"},"content":{"rendered":"

We\u2019ve all heard that there are 12 years left<\/a> to act to avoid a climate catastrophe. What does this mean for Canada? Are any of the federal parties prepared to confront this challenge? To answer these questions, we first need to examine what that deadline does \u2013 and does not \u2013 mean.<\/p>\n

In the Paris Climate Agreement<\/a>, the world agreed to limit global warming to well below 2\u00b0C but to also pursue efforts to limit warming to 1.5\u00b0C. These numbers are not fundamental features of Earth\u2019s climate system. They are policy judgments, politically mediated verdicts on the levels of warming that the world considers dangerous. The lower 1.5\u00b0C value arose from years of lobbying by small island states and other developing nations<\/a> that objected to the less cautious 2\u00b0C limit and to being excluded from the conversation.<\/p>\n

Because of this disagreement, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was asked to write a special report<\/a> specifically about the implications of the lower warming limit. That report, released in 2018, found that the world needs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 45 percent by the year 2030 for a two-thirds chance of avoiding 1.5\u00b0C warming. Subtract 2018 from 2030, and you get the now famous \u201c12 years left.\u201d<\/p>\n

To understand the implications for Canada and our coming election, we can use data straight out of that IPCC report. The IPCC has been able to estimate how much carbon the world has left to burn for a chance at avoiding different levels of warming, and each country\u2019s share of that carbon budget.<\/p>\n

The key challenge is deciding how much of the carbon budget each country should have. Should it be based on a country\u2019s present-day emissions, wealthy high-emitting countries like Canada would have more carbon to burn and leave little left for the developing world. For example, following that logic, the US, Europe, Japan and China would alone consume the entire carbon budget for 1.5\u00b0C, leaving nothing for the rest of the world. It is not a tenable approach to dividing responsibility.<\/p>\n

The most equitable solution is to divide the carbon budget based on population. This way, Canada receives a smaller portion (0.5 percent) but provides a more realistic pathway for the rest of the world. Using this approach, I\u2019ve calculated future CO2<\/sub> emissions trajectories compatible with Canada\u2019s remaining carbon budget for a two-thirds chance of avoiding 1.5\u00b0C, 2\u00b0C, 3\u00b0C, and 4\u00b0C increases in global warming and compared the results with the various party platforms and estimates for emissions in the year 2030 (figure 1). These emissions trajectories are scaled to total greenhouse gas emissions, based on recent data showing that CO2<\/sub> represents 80 percent of Canada\u2019s greenhouse gas emissions. The dark line represents the mean trajectory for a given warming level, and the shaded area represents the uncertainty range.<\/p>\n