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Less than 2 °C warming by 2100 unlikely

Nature Climate Change volume 7, pages 637–641 (2017)Cite this article

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Abstract

The recently published Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projections to 2100 give likely ranges of global temperature increase in four scenarios for population, economic growth and carbon use1. However, these projections are not based on a fully statistical approach. Here we use a country-specific version of Kaya’s identity to develop a statistically based probabilistic forecast of CO2 emissions and temperature change to 2100. Using data for 1960–2010, including the UN’s probabilistic population projections for all countries2,3,4, we develop a joint Bayesian hierarchical model for Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita and carbon intensity. We find that the 90% interval for cumulative CO2 emissions includes the IPCC’s two middle scenarios but not the extreme ones. The likely range of global temperature increase is 2.0–4.9 °C, with median 3.2 °C and a 5% (1%) chance that it will be less than 2 °C (1.5 °C). Population growth is not a major contributing factor. Our model is not a ‘business as usual’ scenario, but rather is based on data which already show the effect of emission mitigation policies. Achieving the goal of less than 1.5 °C warming will require carbon intensity to decline much faster than in the recent past.

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Figure 1: Carbon intensity, expressed in tonnes of CO2 per US$10,000 in 2010 Purchasing Power Parity for USA, China, India, and Nigeria.
Figure 2: Out-of-sample predictive validation of model for world CO2 emissions.
Figure 3: Probabilistic forecast to 2100, with IPCC RCP scenarios.
Figure 4: Probabilistic CO2 emissions forecasts for leading countries and regions, with Paris climate agreement targets.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by NIH grants R01 HD054511 and R01 HD070936.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Statistics, University of Washington, Box 354322, Seattle, Washington, 98195-4322, USA

    Adrian E. Raftery & Peiran Liu

  2. Upstart, PO Box 1503, San Carlos, California, 94070, USA

    Alec Zimmer

  3. Department of Atmospheric Sciences, University of Washington, Box 351640, Seattle, Washington, 98195-1640, USA

    Dargan M. W. Frierson

  4. Department of Economics, University of California, Santa Barbara, California, 93106-9210, USA

    Richard Startz

Authors
  1. Adrian E. Raftery
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  5. Peiran Liu
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Contributions

The first four authors wrote the manuscript and developed the statistical model. A.E.R. and D.M.W.F. designed the study. A.Z. and P.L. compiled and analysed data and wrote computer code.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Adrian E. Raftery.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Raftery, A., Zimmer, A., Frierson, D. et al. Less than 2 °C warming by 2100 unlikely. Nature Clim Change 7, 637–641 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate3352

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