Abstract: The Paris Agreement of 2015 uses Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to achieve its goal to limit climate change to well below 2∘C. Article 6 allows countries to cooperatively implement NDCs provided they do not double-count mitigation. We estimate that economic efficiency gains from cooperative implementation of existing NDC goals using Article 6 could reduce the cost of achieving NDC goals in 2030 to all parties by ∼$300×10^9, which if reinvested in additional emissions mitigation could add 9 billion tons CO2/year mitigation, beyond the 8 billion tons CO2/year currently pledged in 2030. We estimate that more than half of the 2030 gains could come from nature-based measures, but long-term potential for nature-based measures is more limited. How much or even if this economic potential can be realized is uncertain and will depend on both the rules and their implementation.
School Authors: Allen Fawcett, Gokul Iyer, Alicia Zhao
Other Authors: John Bistline, Aaron Bergman, Geoffrey Blanford, Maxwell Brown, Dallas Burtraw, Maya Domeshek, Anne Hamilton, Jesse Jenkins, Ben King, Hannah Kolus, Amanda Levin, Qian Luo, Kevin Rennert, Molly Robertson, Nicholas Roy, Ethan Russell, Daniel Shawhan, Daniel Steinberg, Anna van Brummen, Grace Van Horn, Aranya Venkatesh, John Weyant, Ryan Wiser