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Letter

RCP8.5 is a problematic scenario for near-term emissions

Zeke Hausfather and View ORCID ProfileGlen P. Peters
PNAS November 10, 2020 117 (45) 27791-27792; first published October 20, 2020; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2017124117
Zeke Hausfather
aClimate and Energy Program, Breakthrough Institute, Oakland, CA 94612;
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  • For correspondence: hausfath@gmail.com
Glen P. Peters
bCICERO Center for International Climate Research, 0349 Oslo, Norway
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  • ORCID record for Glen P. Peters

This Letter has a Reply and related content. Please see:

  • Reply to Hausfather and Peters: RCP8.5 is neither problematic nor misleading - October 20, 2020
  • RCP8.5 tracks cumulative CO2 emissions - August 03, 2020
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Schwalm et al. (1) argue that both historical and near-term (through 2050) cumulative emissions are more in line with Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 (RCP8.5) than other RCPs (2), and take issue with our suggestion (3) that the treatment of the scenario as “business as usual” is misleading.

We previously pointed out (3) that International Energy Agency (IEA) World Energy Outlook (WEO) scenarios (4) of near-term fossil CO2 emissions are a more reliable indicator of likely outcomes under current policies than RCP or Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) (5) baseline scenarios, as they account for the global decline in coal use over the past decade and falling prices of clean energy technologies. We found IEA scenarios agree much …

↵1To whom correspondence may be addressed. Email: hausfath{at}gmail.com.

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References

  1. ↵
    1. C. R. Schwalm,
    2. S. Glendon,
    3. P. B. Duffy
    , RCP8.5 tracks cumulative CO2 emissions. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 117, 19656–19657 (2020).
    OpenUrlAbstract/FREE Full Text
  2. ↵
    1. K. Riahi et al.
    , RCP 8.5—a scenario of comparatively high greenhouse gas emissions. Clim. Change 109, 33 (2011).
    OpenUrl
  3. ↵
    1. Z. Hausfather,
    2. G. P. Peters
    , Emissions—the “business as usual” story is misleading. Nature 577, 618–620 (2020).
    OpenUrl
  4. ↵
    1. International Energy Agency
    , World Energy Outlook 2019, (International Energy Agency, 2019).
  5. ↵
    1. K. Riahi et al.
    , The Shared Socioeconomic Pathways and their energy, land use, and greenhouse gas emissions implications: An overview. Glob. Environ. Change 42, 153–168 (2017).
    OpenUrlCrossRef
  6. ↵
    1. P. Friedlingstein et al.
    , Global carbon budget 2019. Earth Syst. Sci. Data 11, 1783–1838 (2019).
    OpenUrl

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RCP8.5 is a problematic scenario for near-term emissions
Zeke Hausfather, Glen P. Peters
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Nov 2020, 117 (45) 27791-27792; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2017124117

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RCP8.5 is a problematic scenario for near-term emissions
Zeke Hausfather, Glen P. Peters
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Nov 2020, 117 (45) 27791-27792; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2017124117
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