'Ramped-up' commitments needed to overcome carbon emissions gap

To overcome an "emissions gap," an anticipated global deal on climate change should encourage countries to upscale their ambition on carbon emissions reductions every few years, according to a paper published Monday by two British institutes.

The paper was written by researchers from the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, and the ESRC Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy.

They say in the paper that a crucial climate change conference in Paris later this year is "highly unlikely" to agree on emissions reductions targets that limit global warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

However, they argue: "Success in Paris will depend largely on whether the new agreement contains elements that create pressures to scale-up ambition in the years following the Paris COP (Conference of Parties)."

The 21st session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC COP 21) will take place in Paris from Nov. 30 to Dec. 11.

All eyes will be on the negotiations expected to result in a legally binding and universal global climate agreement.

The paper calls for an agreement made in Paris to mandate countries to evaluate their commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at regular time periods. It suggests that countries could upscale their ambition every five years, as new low-carbon technologies become available and the costs of existing technologies continue to fall.

The paper also proposes several major targets that countries should focus on to avoid dangerous climate change. These include achieving net zero emissions in the second half of this century, decarbonizing electricity production by 2050 at the latest and phasing out coal entirely.

The intended nationally determined contributions that countries have so far submitted ahead of Paris should be seen as "initial contributions" at the start of a process of raising ambition over time towards the ultimate goal of net zero emissions, according to the paper.