Caroline Lucas – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Caroline Lucas on 2015-12-01.
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, how many Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change scenarios for keeping global temperatures below two degrees require (a) negative emissions technologies and (b) peaking of global emissions before (i) 2015 and (ii) 2020; and if she will make a statement.
Andrea Leadsom
Of the 204 emissions scenarios included in the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report database with climate model projections which are consistent with a more than 50% chance of keeping global warming below 2 °C by 2100:
(a)177 of these include negative emissions technologies; and
(b)noting that the scenarios do not consider emissions in 2015, but rather for each decade:
(i) 111 of the scenarios require emissions to peak by 2010; and
(ii) 46 additional scenarios require emissions to peak by 2020.
The remainder either do not report total emissions (11) or peak after 2020. The general features of the scenarios in this database show that delaying strong action to reduce emissions would increase the risk of exceeding 2 °C of warming and associated impacts, and require deeper emissions cuts in the future and/or a heavier reliance on negative emissions technologies at scale. This is why the Department is seeking ambitious global action on climate change in Paris.
