30 November 2015: The Sustainable Development Solutions Network’s (SDSN) Deep Decarbonization Pathways Project (DDPP) issued a working paper calling for all countries to design long-term Deep Decarbonization Pathways, and to reflect these plans in short-term climate strategies, such as the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs).

The project defines “long-term deep decarbonization” as moving towards a global average of 1.7tCO2 per capita by mid-century, in order to ensure that global warming stays within the 2°C limit in the rise in global temperatures.

The paper, which is authored by Jeffrey D. Sachs, Guido Schmidt-Traub, Jim Williams, Laura Segafredo, Michel Colombier, Teresa Ribera, and Henri Waisman, calls on the Paris Climate Change Conference to agree that all countries should prepare and make available Deep Decarbonization Pathways in conjunction with their INDCs, to be submitted no later than 2018. According to DDPP’s work, it says, strategies through 2030 not nested in a long-term Deep Decarbonization Pathway to 2050 likely will be inconsistent with deep decarbonization, even if they reach acceptable numerical emission targets by 2030.

To be consistent with long-term Deep Decarbonization Pathways, the paper says that INDCs must consider four dimensions. First, INDCs must be based on a long-term pathway for deep decarbonization with the goal of reduce net emissions to zero by 2070. Second, strategies must fully address the three pillars of deep decarbonization: energy efficiency, low-carbon electricity generation, and electrification of end uses and a switch to low-carbon fuels. Third, INDCs must spell out a strategy for accelerating the development and diffusion of new technologies, with regard to renewables, carbon capture and storage, energy efficiency, electric and fuel cell technologies, biofuels, smart grids and advanced nuclear power. Fourth, the national process of developing and revising INDCs must ensure consistency with long-term deep decarbonization, with INDCs reviewed, discussed and revised by all relevant stakeholders in government, business and civil society.

The DDPP was launched by SDSN and the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations (IDDRI) in 2013, bringing together research institutions from 16 of the world’s largest emitters of greenhouse gases (GHGs) to focus on the technical and technological challenges of long-term deep decarbonization. [SDSN Press Release] [Publication: Why Climate Policy Needs Long-term Deep Decarbonization Pathways]