Existing climate pledges won’t be sufficient to keep global temperature rise under the 2100 target in the Paris Agreement, increasing the likelihood that governments will resort to more stringent actions that risk “severe” economic impacts, according to a new report from Oxford Economics.
The report outlines the effects of a “disorderly” scenario in which current national climate pledges fail to deliver near-term results needed to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. As a result, Oxford Economics’ model assumes governments would be forced to implement an “aggressive” global carbon tax under conditions in which too few non-emitting resources would be in service to mitigate the effects of such a tax.
“If decisive climate change mitigation is delayed until 2030, a disorderly transition will likely unfold and require stronger policy action to reach net-zero emissions by 2050,” the report’s author, Oxford Economics senior economist Daniel Moseley, said. “Our latest modelling suggests that an aggressive carbon tax policy and frictions in shifting to renewables would result in substantial economic damage.”
