US , China Copenhagen commitments evaluation

I mentioned in class today that I'd evaluate the Copenhagen emission reduction impacts on decarbonization rate against those we'd done previously. Remember that what we'd done before was based on the base year of 1990.

Here are the results for the US:



You can see that the near-term targets are less ambitious than the target of 20% reduction by 2020 with 1990 as a base year. The longer term target (83% reduction against 2005 base year) is right in line w/ that we evaluated (80% reduction with 1990 base year).

For China, not surprisingly, the emission intensity reduction proposed as part of the Copenhagen Accords is much less ambitious than the decarbonization rates we've evaluated:



As mentioned in class, the outcome (emission growth rates) are a function of how fast the economy grows in the future. Here is an emission forecast based on continuation of observed growth rates and future growth rates at -2 or +2% compared with those observed in the past:



If growth continues as it has, decarbonization would reduce the emission growth rate (red line). If economic growth slows (by 2%), emission growth rate would slow even more. It seems unlikely that the already high economic growth rates would accelerate, but if they did (by 2%), emission growth rate would continue on its current trajectory.