The point of no return for climate action: effects of climate uncertainty and risk tolerance

Aengenheyster, Matthias; Feng, Qing Yi; van der Ploeg, Frederick; Dijkstra, Henk A.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-9-1085-2018

Articles | Volume 9, issue 3

https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-9-1085-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-9-1085-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 9, issue 3

Research article

| Highlight paper

|

30 Aug 2018

Research article | Highlight paper |

| 30 Aug 2018

The point of no return for climate action: effects of climate uncertainty and risk tolerance

Matthias Aengenheyster, Qing Yi Feng, Frederick van der Ploeg, and Henk A. Dijkstra

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Final revised paper (published on 30 Aug 2018)
Preprint (discussion started on 21 Mar 2018)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

RC1: 'review', Anonymous Referee #1, 25 Mar 2018
- AC1: 'Reply', Henk A. Dijkstra, 30 May 2018
- AC3: 'Title Change', Henk A. Dijkstra, 30 May 2018
RC2: 'Review', Anonymous Referee #2, 26 Apr 2018
- AC2: 'Reply', Henk A. Dijkstra, 30 May 2018

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (30 May 2018) by Christian Franzke

AR by Henk A. Dijkstra on behalf of the Authors (08 Jul 2018) Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (09 Jul 2018) by Christian Franzke

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (10 Jul 2018)

ED: Publish subject to technical corrections (18 Jul 2018) by Christian Franzke

AR by Henk A. Dijkstra on behalf of the Authors (19 Jul 2018) Manuscript

Short summary

We determine the point of no return (PNR) for climate change, which is the latest year to take action to reduce greenhouse gases to stay, with a certain probability, within thresholds set by the Paris Agreement. For a 67 % probability and a 2 K threshold, the PNR is the year 2035 when the share of renewable energy rises by 2 % per year. We show the impact on the PNR of the speed by which emissions are cut, the risk tolerance, climate uncertainties and the potential for negative emissions.