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Question 1

What is climate change mitigation?

Answer 1

a human intervention to REDUCE THE SOURCES or ENHANCE THE SINKS of GHG in order to prevent global temperature increase and its consequent impacts

Question 2

What is climate change adaptation?

Answer 2

the process of adjustment to actual or expected climate and its effects

Question 3

What is climate resilient development a product of?

Answer 3

mitigation and adaptation

Question 4

What is the UNFCCC objective?

Answer 4

stablisation of ghg concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system

allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to cc, to ensure food production is not threatened and to enable economic development to proceeds in a sustainable manner

Question 5

What is the TCR

Answer 5

Transient climate response - temperature as a result of a doubling of Co2 emissions

Question 6

What would be the impact of stopping emissions right now on conc ppm and temp

Answer 6

If emissions suddently were capped the concetration would reduce to a lower level - and don’t stay constant

temperatures stays pretty much constant as soon as we stop emitting co2

Question 7

What is the relationship between net zero and the carbon emissions?

Answer 7

net zero only become a international and national level concept once it was established that there was a limited amount of carbon that could be emitted

Question 8

What is the carbon budget?

Answer 8

the total amount of anthropogenic carbon dioxide that can still be emitted into the atmosphere while holding the global average temperature increase to the parish agreement

Question 9

What is the relationship between temperature and cumulative carbon targets?

Answer 9

there is a direct link

Question 10

Is there concensus on the carbon budget?

Answer 10

No all different IPCC working groups said different amounts for the remaining carbon budgets

calculation method results in a large difference

time frame is also important for re-bound warming

non-Co2 gases are challenging to account for

Question 11

What were some of the complicating factors for estimating the remaining carbon budget?

Answer 11

• magnitude of warming per tonne Co2
• assumed warming to date
• assumed future non-Co2 emissions
• magnitude of future non-Co2 warming

Question 12

What are the 5 components taken into account by the IPCC special report 6th assessment carbon budget framework?

Answer 12

1. Historical warming to date - uncertainty range is quite large
2. transient climate response to cumulative emissions of carbon dioxide (TCRE) - not exactly true that once we stop emitting warming stays the same
3. zero emissions commitment
4. projects future non-co2 temperature contribution - how much warming will this cause
5. unrepresented earth system feedbacks eg. permafrost, nitrogen cycles - relationship is based off of models and observations

Question 13

What is the carbon budget?

Answer 13

Not a single number but depends on a set of choices
- temperature
- likelihood

Question 14

Historically who have been the big emitters?

Answer 14

US and Europe sinxe the 50/60s

all emissions started in Europe - make up the total emissions till 18000s - now in cumulative terms have emitted more than china, India and Africa together

Question 15

What is the relationship between emissions and development?

Answer 15

highly intertwined in the past half a century

With GDP increasing there is an increase in Co2 intensity

Issue is that there are a lot of emissions embedded in trade - not represented by country emissions

Question 16

How do we make mitigation responsibility fair?

Answer 16

UNCC - common but differentiated responsibilties and respective capabilities

capacity - wealthy pay principle = how the burden of climate change can be shared through capacity building
equality/need - everyone has a right to development
responsibility- polluter pays principle= the more you emitted in the past the more you have to pay now through adaption finance

Question 17

Can you expand on the principle of the carbon budget approach?

Answer 17

= equal emisions entitlement

portion of global carbon budget allocated on basis of the population

Question 18

What is the index-based approach for burden sharing

Answer 18

=historitcal responsibilties

share of mitigation determined by share of historical emissions

Question 19

What is the contraction and convergence approach for equitable burden sharing?

Answer 19

= Equal emissions entitlement

country emissions follow a pathway where they contract to converge on the same emissions per capita by a specified date

Question 20

What is common but differentiated convergence?

Answer 20

= equal emissions and historical responsibility

Country emissions follow a pathway where they contract to converge on emissions by capita by a specified date
but countries are further differentiated on their level of economic development
countries below per capita threshold can carry on

Question 21

What is cost proportional to GDP oer capita?

Answer 21

= Capacity to pay

targets set based on equal mitigation costs as a percentage of GDP

Question 22

What are GHG development rights?

Answer 22

= right to development

Everybody participates, but individuals under a specific development threshold are exempt from mitigation

Question 23

How is burden sharing understood in the paris agreement?

Answer 23

each partys successive pledge to an NDC will represent a progression beyond the party then current NDC and reflects its highest possible ambition, reflecting is common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities in light of different national circumstances

developed countries should take the lead and provide finance, technology and capacity building

Question 24

What is the global warming potential of a gas - simple explanation about how it is calculated

Answer 24

ghg are converted into Co2e by multiplying each gas by its 100 year global warming potential value

that is the amount of warming one ton of that gas would create relative to one tone of Co2 over 100 year timescale

Question 25

What are direct emissions?

Answer 25

arise from the combustion of fuels during the activity eg. from the exhaust of a car

Question 26

What are indirect emissions

Answer 26

emissions associated with production of electricity and hydrogen and heat

Question 27

What are the different scopes and there meaning?

Answer 27

Scope 1- direct emissions from owned and controlled sources

Scope 2- emissions are indirect emissions from the generation of purchased energy

Scope 3- all indirect emissions - not included in scope 2- that occur in the value chain of the reporting company, including both upstream and downstream emissions

Question 28

Kaya Identity - what are the key drivers?

Answer 28

1. population
2. GDP/population
3. Energy/gdp
4. CO2/energy

Question 29

What is the kaya identity forumla?

Answer 29

Co2 emissions = pop x gdp/pop x energy/gdp x co2/energy

Question 30

how do you decouple Co2 emissions from growth?

Answer 30

Energy efficiency - energy intensity improvement
eg. energy efficiency, energy demand reduction, behavioural change
or
Co2 intensity
- fuel switching, renewables, CCs

Question 31

Do we have an implementation gap

Answer 31

Yes there is still a large gap between what we are currently doing, 2030 targets, ledges and targets and being compatible with 1.5oc