Deep Decarbonization Pathways (DDPs): A catalyst for the climate change debate

Henri Waisman, Institut du Développement Durable et des Relations Internationales (IDDRI)
Maria Rosa Virdis - ENEA

DOI 10.12910/EAI2016-015

During 2015, most national governments submitted Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) as part of the process towards a new global climate agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. These INDCs, codified in the Paris agreement, are mostly focused on emission targets set by 2025 or 2030. Hence they do not provide a clear vision of the profound transformation of energy systems required by mid-century to maintain the 2 °C threshold

In the climate discussions, it is now recognized that all countries need to act according to their respective capabilities, as formalized in the national bottom up, voluntary, low-carbon strategies (or INDCs). Furthermore, it is clear that meeting the internationally-agreed 2 °C threshold will require a long-term perspective, consistently with the assessment by IPCC (2014) that such threshold demands that all economies reach near-zero greenhouse gas emissions by the second half of this century…