Our analysis of 70 energy intensive companies shows that a small handful are leading the way by setting ambitious and long term emission reduction targets in line with climate science.
We need to get near term emissions reductions, but we need to keep our eyes on the prize.
He said rich nations have failed to set an overall target for mid-term emission reductions or put forward concrete proposals on funding.
"Under those circumstances, it is expected that the carbon price will in the future be more strongly driven by mid- and long-term emission reductions," he said.
Reducing deforestation is the key to meeting the massive short-term emission reductions that science is demanding.
Right now the U.S. is on the verge of a momentous gamble, as reflected in the ACES bill: betting that long-term emission reductions can be achieved via carbon capture and sequestration (CCS).
The idea – from Australian National University academics Frank Jotzo and Salim Mazouz – offers the government hope of meeting the long-term emission reduction targets it will promise in Paris and provides the energy sector with a solution to the problem of oversupply that has forced the mothballing or under-use of less polluting types of generation.
Current climate policy literature provides little guidance on how today's policy choices can successfully shape long-term emission reduction paths.
We find that the EU emission trading system (ETS) has limited and even controversial effects, and that long-term emission reduction targets are an important determinant of corporate innovation activities.
To address such questions, this paper introduces a new agent-based, game theoretic model designed to compare how near-term choices regarding alternative policy architectures influence long-term emission reduction trajectories.
But other countries had acted quickly in the past 12 months to pursue long-term emissions reductions targets, he said.
