rlacombe/ClimateX huggingface dataset:
Mitigation has implications for employment through multiple channels, each of which impacts geographies, sectors and skill categories differently (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: medium)
Pathways with uniform carbon values show higher mitigation costs in more carbon-intensive regions, in fossil fuel exporting regions and in poorer regions (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Aggregate quantifications expressed in GDP or monetary terms undervalue the economic effects on households in poorer countries; the actual effects on welfare and well-being are comparatively larger (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Mitigation at the speed and scale required to limit warming to 2°C (>67%) or lower implies deep economic and structural changes, thereby raising multiple types of distributional concerns across regions, income classes and sectors (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Dimensions with potential trade-offs include food, employment, water stress, and biodiversity, which come under pressure from large-scale CDR deployment, energy affordability/ access, and mineral-resource extraction (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Feasibility challenges are transient and concentrated in the next two to three decades (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
However, delaying emissions reductions, or more limited emissions reductions in one sector or region, involves compensating reductions in other sectors or regions if warming is to be limited (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
So, while pathways indicate some flexibility in emissions reductions across sectors, all pathways involve substantial CO 2 emissions reductions in all sectors and regions (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
All pathways that limit warming to 2°C (>67%) or lower show substantial reductions in fossil fuel consumption and a near elimination of the use of coal without CCS (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Stringent emissions reductions at the level required to limit warming to 2°C (>67%) or 1.5°C are achieved through increased electrification of end use, resulting in increased electricity generation in all pathways (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Limiting warming to likely 2°C (>67%) or lower can result in large-scale transformation of the land surface (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Some AFOLU mitigation options can enhance vegetation and soil carbon stocks such as reforestation, restoration of degraded ecosystems, protection of ecosystems with high carbon stocks and changes to agricultural land management to increase soil carbon (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
The time scales associated with these options indicate that carbon sinks in terrestrial vegetation and soil systems can be maintained or enhanced so as to contribute towards long-term mitigation (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
In the very long term (the latter part of the century and beyond), it will become more challenging to continue to enhance vegetation and soil carbon stocks, so that the associated carbon sinks could diminish or even become sources (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Anthropogenic land CO 2 emissions and removals in IAM pathways cannot be directly compared with those reported in national GHG inventories (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
The assessment in this section shows that if mitigation ambitions in NDCs announced prior to COP262,18 are followed until 2030, leading to estimated emissions of 47–57 GtCO 2-eq in 203019 (Section 4.2.2), it is no longer possible to limit warming to 1.5°C (>50%) with no or limited overshoot (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
It would also strongly increase mitigation challenges to limit warming to 2°C (>67%) (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
A lock-in to fossil fuel-intensive production systems (carbon lock-in) will increase the societal, economic and political strain of a rapid low-carbon transition after 2030 (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
However, it is robust across modelling frameworks that the marginal abatement cost of carbon increases for lower temperature categories, with a higher increase in the short term than in the longer term (Figure 3.32, left panel) (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Pathways that correspond to NDCs announced prior to COP26 in 2030 and strengthen action after 2030 imply higher marginal abatement costs of carbon in the longer run than pathways with stronger immediate global mitigation action (Figure 3.32b) (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Mitigation pathways with early emissions reductions represent higher mitigation costs in the short-run but bring long-term gains for the economy compared to delayed transition pathways (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
The AR6 WGII finds that variation in estimated global economic impacts increases with warming in all methodologies, indicating higher risk in terms of economic impacts at higher temperatures (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
The AR6 WGII’s assessment finds that the lack of comparability between methodologies does not allow for identification of robust ranges of global economic impact estimates (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Further, AR6 WGII identifies evaluating and reconciling differences in methodologies as a research priority for facilitating use of the different lines of evidence (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Through avoiding impacts, mitigation thus reduces economic inequalities and poverty (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Targeted policy areas must include healthy nutrition, sustainable consumption and production, inequality and poverty alleviation, air quality and international collaboration (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Lower energy demand enables synergies between mitigation and sustainability, with lower reliance on CDR (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Reducing warming reduces the population impacted by all impact categories shown (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Areas of co-benefits include human health, ambient air pollution and other specific kinds of pollution, while areas of trade-off include food access, habitat loss and mineral resources (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: medium)
Recent research shows that mitigation is compatible with reductions in inequality and poverty (Box 3.6).Lower demand – for example, for energy and land-intensive consumption such as meat – represents a synergistic strategy for achieving ambitious climate mitigation without compromising Sustainable Development Goals (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Climate change will reduce crop yields, increase food insecurity, and negatively influence nutrition and mortality. Climate mitigation will thus reduce these impacts, and hence reduce food insecurity (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Mitigating climate change while ensuring that food security is not adversely affected requires a range of different strategies and interventions (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Taken together, climate changes will reduce crop yields, increase food insecurity and influence nutrition and mortality (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Climate change also affects the occurrence of and exposure to hydrological extremes (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Climate models project increases in drought risk (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: very high)
The effect of climate change on water availability and hydrological extremes varies by region (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Limiting warming could reduce water-related risks (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
The effect of climate change on water depends on the climate model, the hydrological model, and the metric (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
However, the effect of socio-economic development could be larger than the effect of climate change (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Bioenergy and BECCS can increase water withdrawals and water consumption (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
The effect of mitigation on water quality depends on the mitigation option, its implementation, and the aspect of quality considered (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Marine and coastal ecosystems Marine ecosystems are being affected by climate change and growing non-climate pressures including temperature change, acidification, land-sourced pollution, sedimentation, resource extraction and habitat destruction (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
The danger or warming and acidification to coral reefs, rocky shores and kelp forests is well established (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Stringent mitigation that includes reductions in demand for animal-based foods and food waste could also relieve pressures on land use and biodiversity (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Working Group II contribution to this Assessment finds that the overall extent of adaptation-related responses in human systems is low (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
IPCC SR1.5 found that sustainable development pathways to 1.5°C broadly support and often enable transformations and that ‘sustainable development has the potential to significantly reduce systemic vulnerability, enhance adaptive capacity, and promote livelihood security for poor and disadvantaged populations (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Rapid and deep changes in demand make it easier for every sector to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the short and medium term (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Behavioural nudges promote easy behaviour change, for example ‘Improve’ actions such as making investments in energy efficiency, but fail to motivate harder lifestyle changes (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
The study shows that of all demand- side option effects on well-being, 79% are positive, 18% are neutral (or not relevant or specified), and only 3% are negative (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Well-being improvements are most notable in health, air, and energy (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Food (medium confidence), mobility (high confidence), and water (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: medium)
An exception is economic stability, suggesting that demand-side options generate stable opportunities to participate in economic activities (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Around 931 million tonnes of food waste was generated in 2019 globally, 61% of which came from households, 26% from food service and 13% from retail.Demand-side mitigations are achieved through changing Socio- cultural factors, Infrastructure use and Technology adoption by various social actors in urban and other settlements, food choice and waste management (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
The technical mitigation potential of food loss and waste reductions globally has been estimated at 0.1–5.8 GtCO 2-eq (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
The estimated technical potential for GHG emissions reductions associated with shifts to sustainable healthy diets is 0.5–8 GtCO 2-eq (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
They also offer potential levers to change normative ideas and social practices in order to achieve extensive emissions cuts (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Countermovement coalitions work to oppose climate mitigation (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Although there is variability across innovations, sectors, and countries, the transitions literature distinguishes four phases, characterised by generic core processes and challenges: (i) emergence, (ii) early adaptation, (i) diffusion, (iv) stabilisation (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
These four phases do not imply that transitions are linear, teleological processes, because set-backs or reversals may occur as a result of learning processes, conflicts, or changing coalitions (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: very high)
In the first phase, radical innovations emerge in peripheral niches, where researchers, inventors, social movement organisations or community activists dedicate time and effort to their development (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Replacing old coal with new coal facilities is inconsistent with limiting warming to 2°C or below (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Global fossil fuel subsidies represent more than half of total energy subsidies with predominantly adverse environmental, economic, and social effects (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Fossil fuel subsidies most commonly pursue non-climate objectives, for example, enhanced access to energy sources (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Costs have declined by 62% since 2015 (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Key areas for continued improvement are grid integration and non- module costs for rooftop systems (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Most deployment is now utility-scale (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Global future potential is not limited by solar irradiation, but by grid integration needed to address its variability, as well as access to finance, particularly in developing countries (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
The global technical potential of direct solar energy far exceeds that of any other renewable energy resource and is well beyond the total amount of energy needed to support ambitious mitigation over the current century (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
In many parts of the world, the cost of electricity from PV is below the cost of electricity generated from fossil fuels; in some, it is below the operating costs of electricity generated from fossil fuels (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
The share of total costs of PV-intensive electricity systems attributed to integration costs has been increasing but can be reduced by enhancing grid flexibility (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
The most important ways to minimise PV’s impact on the environment lie in recycling materials at end of life and making smart land-use decisions (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: medium)
Material demand for PV will likely increase substantially to limit warming to well below 2°C, but PV materials are widely available, have possible substitutes, and can be recycled (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: medium)
Many alternative PV materials are improving in efficiency and stability, providing longer-term pathways for continued PV costs reductions and better performance (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Solar energy elicits favourable public responses in most countries (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Costs have declined by 18% and 40% on land and offshore since 2015 (high confidence), and further reductions can be expected by 2030 (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: medium)
Wind power is increasingly competitive with other forms of electricity generation and is the low-cost option in many applications, and critical areas for continued improvement are technology advancements and economies of scale (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Global future potential is primarily limited by onshore land availability in wind power-rich areas, lack of supporting infrastructure, grid integration, and access to finance (especially in developing countries) (high confidence).Energy from wind is abundant, and the estimated technical potentials surpass the total amount of energy needed to limit warming to well below 2°C (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Electricity from onshore wind is less expensive than electricity generated from fossil fuels in a growing number of markets (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Wind power plants pose relatively low environmental impact, but sometimes locally significant ecological effects (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Public support for onshore and particularly offshore wind energy is generally high, although people may oppose specific wind farm projects (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
However, the future mitigation potential of hydropower depends on minimising environmental and social impacts during the planning stages, reducing the risks of dam failures, and modernising the ageing hydropower fleet to increase generation capacity and flexibility (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Hydropower is a mature technology with locally adapted solutions (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Hydroelectric power plants may pose serious environmental and societal impacts (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Yet, public support for hydro seems to differ for existing and new projects (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Doing so will require improvements in managing construction of reactor designs that hold the promise of lower costs and broader use (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: medium)
At the same time, nuclear power continues to be affected by cost overruns, high upfront investment needs, challenges with final disposal of radioactive waste, and varying public acceptance and political support levels (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
There are sufficient resources for substantially increasing nuclear deployment (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: medium)
There are several possible nuclear technology options for the period from 2030 to 2050 (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: medium)
Nuclear power costs vary substantially across countries (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Cost-cutting opportunities, such as design standardisation and innovations in construction approaches, are expected to make SMRs competitive against large reactors by 2040 (Rubio and Tricot 2016) (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: medium)
However, new reactor designs with passive and enhanced safety systems reduce the risk of such accidents significantly (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Nuclear power continues to suffer from limited public and political support in some countries (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Most of the countries that might introduce nuclear power in the future for their climate change mitigation benefits do not envision developing their own full fuel cycle, significantly reducing any risks that might be linked to proliferation (IAEA 2014, 2019).6.4.2.5 Carbon Dioxide Capture, Utilisation and Storage Since AR5, there have been increased efforts to develop novel platforms that reduce the energy penalty associated with CO 2 capture, develop CO 2 utilisation pathways as a substitute to geologic storage, and establish global policies to support CCS (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
The theoretical global geologic storage potential is about 10,000 GtCO 2, with more than 80% of this capacity existing in saline aquifers (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: medium)
CO2 utilisation (CCU) – instead of geologic storage – could present an alternative method of decarbonisation (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Existing post-combustion approaches relying on absorption are technologically ready for full-scale deployment (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
CO2 capture costs present a key challenge, remaining higher than USD50 tCO 2–1 for most technologies and regions; novel technologies could help reduce some costs (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
The potential for such reductions is limited in several regions due to low sink availability, but it could jump-start initial investments (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: medium)
Because CCS always adds cost, policy instruments are required for it to be widely deployed (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Its long-term role in low-carbon energy systems is therefore uncertain (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Several technological and institutional barriers exist for large-scale BECCS implementation, including large energy requirements for CCS, limit and cost of biomass supply and geologic sinks for CO 2 in several regions, and cost of CO 2 capture technologies (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Fossil fuel reserves have continued to rise because of advanced exploration and utilisation techniques (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
A fraction of these available reserves can be used consistent with mitigation goals when paired with CCS opportunities in close geographical proximity (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
The cost of producing electricity from fossil sources has remained roughly the same with some regional exceptions while the costs of producing transport fuels has gone down significantly (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Owing to climate constraints, these may become stranded, causing considerable economic impacts (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Oil and coal consistently rank among the least preferred energy sources in many countries (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
The geophysical potential of geothermal resources is 1.3 to 13 times the global electricity demand in 2019 (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: medium)
Public awareness and knowledge of geothermal energy is relatively low (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Geothermal energy is evaluated as less acceptable than other renewable energy sources such as solar and wind, but is preferred over fossil and nuclear energy, and in some studies, over hydroelectric energy (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Rather than incremental planning, strategic energy system planning can help minimise long-term mitigation costs (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
No single, sufficiently mature energy storage technology can provide all the required grid services – a portfolio of complementary technologies working together can provide the optimum solution (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
TES can be much cheaper than batteries and has the unique ability to capture and reuse waste heat and cold, enabling the efficiency of many industrial, buildings, and domestic processes to be greatly improved (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
At present hydrogen has limited applications – mainly being produced onsite for the creation of methanol and ammonia (IEA 2019c), as well as in refineries.Low- or zero-carbon produced hydrogen is not currently competitive for large-scale applications, but it is likely to have a significant role in future energy systems, due to its wide-range of applications (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Contextual factors, such as physical and climate conditions, infrastructure, available technology, regulations, institutions, culture, and financial conditions define the costs and benefits of mitigation options that enable or inhibit their adoption (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
However, globally climate change impacts on electricity generation – including hydro, wind and solar power potentials – should not compromise climate mitigation strategies (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Areas with decreased runoff are anticipated to experience reduced hydropower production and increased water conflict among different economic activities (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Changing wind variability may have a small-to-modest impact on backup energy and storage needs (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: low)
Climate change will shift the suitable range for bioenergy towards higher latitudes, but the net change in the total suitable area is uncertain (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
The effect of climate change on bioenergy crop yields will increase in high latitudes (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: low)
Peak load may increase more than energy consumption, and the changing spatial and temporal load patterns can impact transmission and needs for storage, demands- side management, and peak-generating capacity (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Their environmental impacts of renewable energy production are mostly confined to areas close to the production sources and have been shown to be trivial compared to the mitigation benefits of renewable energy (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
High-fidelity models and analyses are needed to assess the economic and environmental characteristics and the feasibility of many aspects of net-zero or net-negative emissions energy systems (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Configurations of net-zero energy systems will vary by region but are likely to share several common characteristics (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
The precise quantity of fossil fuels will largely depend on the relative costs of such fuels, electrification, alternative fuels, and CDR (Section 6.6.2.4) in the energy system (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
There is considerable flexibility regarding the overall quantity of liquid and gaseous fuels that will be required in net-zero energy systems (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
There are many possible configurations and technologies for zero- or net- negative-emissions electricity systems (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)
Based on their increasing economic competitiveness, VRE technologies, especially wind and solar power, will likely comprise large shares of many regional generation mixes (IPCC AR6_WGIII, confidence: high)