Publication
In the annual Hamburg Climate Futures Outlook, the Hamburg Cluster of Excellence Climate, Climatic Change, and Society (CLICCS) researchers make the first systematic attempt to assess which climate futures are plausible, by combining multidisciplinary assessments of plausibility. CLICCS has released a publication attempting to systematically assess whether a climate future
In the annual Hamburg Climate Futures Outlook, the Hamburg Cluster of Excellence Climate, Climatic Change, and Society (CLICCS) researchers make the first systematic attempt to assess which climate futures are plausible, by combining multidisciplinary assessments of plausibility. CLICCS has released a publication attempting to systematically assess whether a climate future with global net-zero emissions – so-called deep decarbonization – by 2050 is not only possible, but also plausible. At the core of the study is a plausibility assessment of the social dynamics required to bring about such a transformation. The report states that deep decarbonization by 2050 is currently not plausible. This result, together with the plausibility assessment of very high emissions scenarios, leads researchers to suggest a new range of plausible warming by the end of the century. They find that a global mean surface warming of less than about 1.7 degrees Celsius by 2100 is not plausible, but nor is a rise of more than about 4.9 degrees.