On April 14, 2020, Professor Wei Yiming of the center for energy and environmental policy research of Beijing University of science and technology made the latest research achievement "self preservation strategy for adapting global warming in the post Paris Agreement era" to study research Article) was published online in nature communications, a subsidiary of nature, and was selected as the key papers of nature (only 1% of all published papers in nature series journals are selected every year).
Based on the long-term cooperation between Professor Wei Yiming, Professor Yu Biying and Professor Liang qiaomei of the energy and environmental policy research center of Beijing University of science and technology, this work is a national task such as the national key R & D plan project (2016yfa0602600) "Research on the comprehensive assessment model of the economic impact of climate change" and the innovation research group project (71521002) led by Professor Wei Yiming Research results formed with support. Professor Wei Yiming is the first author and corresponding author of this paper, and Beijing University of technology is the first completion unit. The partners include the international research team of Royal Institute of technology of Sweden and State University of New York, etc.
Tackling climate change requires collective action from all countries around the world. In December 2015, the parties adopted the Paris Agreement and defined the goal of controlling the global temperature rise to no more than 2 degrees before industrialization at the end of this century, and established the goal of 1.5 degrees temperature control as the long-term direction of efforts to cope with climate change. The Paris agreement stipulates that each party shall submit "national independent emission reduction contribution" (NDC) every five years, and each country shall set its own emission reduction targets. However, most of the existing studies show that the contribution of national independent emission reduction can not meet the requirements of 2 degree and 1.5 degree temperature control targets. In order to make NDC and global temperature control target approach continuously, the Paris agreement has set up a dynamic evaluation mechanism, which requires countries to increase emission reduction according to their own emission reduction capacity. However, due to the consideration of short-term economic development, countries or regions may refuse to strengthen short-term actions, which poses a serious challenge to Global Climate Governance in the post Paris era. In this context, quantifying the potential benefits and costs of each country's action plan under the goal of temperature control will help to improve the enthusiasm of the country to cope with climate change and promote the process of global climate governance.
In order to achieve the goal of long-term temperature control and avoid huge losses, Professor Wei Yiming's team adopted the "comprehensive assessment model of China's climate change" (C for short) independently developed
3iam) ", under the condition of considering the uncertainty of technology development and climate change, this paper evaluates the possible economic benefits and avoided climate losses caused by climate change in various countries, and puts forward the optimal" self-protection strategy "that can realize no regrets of all parties in the post Paris Agreement era. It is found that although there is a certain initial cost to achieve the 2-degree and 1.5-degree targets, if the current emission reduction efforts (NDC) are not improved, by the end of this century, compared with the goal of temperature control, the global total will lose about 127-616 trillion US dollars; if countries fail to achieve the current NDC, it is expected that the global lost earnings will probably reach 150-792 trillion US dollars 。
The construction of self-protection strategy and its main characteristics
Under the "self-protection strategy", the world will turn loss into profit in 2065-2070. At the end of this century, all countries and regions have positive cumulative net income, which is expected to reach 0.46% to 5.24% of GDP in 2100. The average net expenditure of each country is less than 0.57% of annual GDP, which has a very limited impact on economic growth. Under the goal of temperature control, the world needs about $18-114 trillion in early-stage investment to achieve a turnaround in response to climate change. Among them, G20 countries need to pay about US $16-104 trillion in early-stage investment; Latin America, the Middle East and Africa and other relatively vulnerable countries and regions need us $1.35-9.77 and US $0.06-0.31 trillion in capital investment to turn from deficit to profit before 2060-2075 and 2030-2035.
Global, regional and national net income and turnaround time under self-protection strategy
At present, most countries lack of ambition for their own emission reduction targets. In order to achieve the long-term temperature control goal and economic benefits, in 2030, the world needs to further reduce 19-29 and 28-30 gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent based on the existing NDC to achieve the temperature control goals of 2 degrees and 1.5 degrees. All countries and regions need to further improve their emission reduction efforts based on the existing NDC. Among them, Japan, the United States, Russia, the European Union and China need to make more efforts to achieve a net zero emission by the middle of this century.
Emission gap between global, regional and national temperature control targets under self-protection strategy
Based on the results of the model, the research team developed a global plan for national independent emission reduction contribution improvement to achieve the temperature control goal in the post Paris Agreement era; predicted the time for countries to turn losses into profits under different plans; quantified the initial investment to turn losses into profits, and provided a scientific basis for NDC target update, global inventory and inter country capital and technology transfer.
Previously, Professor Wei Yiming's team published research articles in four natural journals, including nature energy, nature climate change, nature communications, and nature sustainability.