Limited emission reductions from fuel subsidy removal except in energy-exporting regions
Hopes are high that removing fossil fuel subsidies could help to mitigate climate change by discouraging inefficient energy consumption and levelling the playing field for renewable energy. In…
Signal detection in global mean temperatures after Paris: an uncertainty and sensitivity analysis
Since large financial flows will be needed to keep GMSTs (global mean surface temperatures) below 2.0 °C, it is important to know how GMST has progressed since pre-industrial times. We performed an…
National contributions to climate change mitigation from agriculture: allocating a global target
Globally, agriculture and related land use change contributed about 17% of the world’s anthropogenic GHG emissions in 2010 (8.4 GtCO 2 e yr −1 ), making GHG mitigation in the agriculture sector…
Trade-offs and synergies between universal electricity access and climate change mitigation in Sub-Saharan Africa
Access to electricity services is fundamental to development, as it enables improvements to the quality of human life. At the same time, increasing electricity access can have notable consequences for…
Unpacking the nexus: Different spatial scales for water, food and energy
Recent years have shown increased awareness that the use of the basic resources water, food, and energy are highly interconnected (referred to as a ‘nexus’). Spatial scales are an important but…
Renewable energy generation and energy saving are increasing, energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions are decreasing. However, various targets for energy and climate for 2020, will not be…
Nitrogen leaching from natural ecosystems under global change: a modelling study
To study global nitrogen (N) leaching from natural ecosystems under changing N deposition, climate, and atmospheric CO 2 , we performed a factorial model experiment for the period 1901–2006 with the N…
Trends in global CO2 and total greenhouse gas emissions: 2017 report
CO 2 emissions and total global greenhouse gas emissions are reported for 2016. Total global greenhouse gas emissions continued to increase by about 0.5% in 2016, reaching 49.3 gigatonnes in CO 2…
Open discussion of negative emissions is urgently needed
At the moment, nearly all model-based scenarios that limit global warming to 2 °C or less use negative CO 2 emission technologies (NETs), particularly bio-energy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS…
The worldwide context of China’s Green Transition to 2050
China is entering a crucial period of economic transformation, largely triggered by environmental issues. Chinese advisors are formulating a policy framework to guide this vast, complex and decades…
Planbureau voor de Leefomgeving
