Fig 1.
A) Time series of global warming (dashed line) simulated RCP 8.5 scenario by the model CSIRO-Mk3-6-0 of CSIRO. The solid line corresponds to the 30-year moving average, and the year when this time series crosses the 2°C threshold is defined as the zero emission year. B) Example of the frequency distribution of zero emission years for entire set of simulations of the RCP8.5 scenario. The shaded area in light red corresponds to the global climate warming in the RCP8.5 simulations, whereas the lines after 2085 correspond to the individual time series of global warming. C) The time series of cumulative emissions since the pre-industrial era and the definition of the total cumulative emissions required to avoid exceeding the 2°C warming limit for the ZEY of 2042 defined in A).
Fig 2.
Estimated time series of the world population [34,40].
The solid black line corresponds to the median population, and the dashed lines correspond to the upper and lower limits of the projection [40]. Coloured lines correspond to time series of world population associated with the different RCP scenarios [34].
Fig 3.
Linear fit between total radiative forcing and CO2 radiative forcing using information from [4].
Fig 4.
A) Frequency distribution of zero emission year. Bars indicate the percentage of the CMIP5 simulations that predicted climate warming greater than or equal to 2°C in the range of zero emission years defined by the bar width, which is 5 years. B) The frequency distribution of remaining global quota (bars), with a similar interpretation to (A), and the ensemble of opportunity (red line, right-hand side vertical axis). The probability of success of one remaining global quota was computed as the number of CMIP5 simulations with a remaining global quota greater than or equal to the remaining global quota.
Fig 5.
A) Curves of personal quotas as a function of the zero emission year. Each curve is associated with one percentage of the ensemble of opportunity defined for the remaining global quota. The red line defines the possible limit defined by the CMIP5 simulation with a larger remaining global quota, and green line the relationship between ZEY and personal quota for the minimum remaining global quota associated with the “well below 2°C” target (T = 594 Gt CO2). B) The frequency distribution of personal quotas obtained by defining a zero emission year of 2050. C) The frequency distribution of the zero emission year obtained by defining a personal quota as 5.0 tons of CO2 yr-1 p-1.
Fig 6.
The time series of per capita emissions associated with RCP simulations (colour lines), historical per capita emission of RCP simulations (black line), and information published CDIAC (magenta circles).
The dashed line corresponds to the personal quota of 5.0 tons of CO2 yr-1 p-1.
Fig 7.
A) Time series of per capita CO2 emissions for the numerical model MAGICC, and scenario of T = ∞ (red line), constant Q for T = 1562 Gt CO2 (50% of the ensemble of opportunity) and constant Q for T = 594 Gt CO2 (“well below 2°C” target) in black lines. Subset of time series that consider a gradual reduction in per capita emissions are shown in dashed yellow (T = 1562 Gt CO2) and green lines (T = 594 Gt CO2). B) Similar to (A) for total CO2 emissions. Light blue and light red dashed lines in A) and B) denotes per-capita emissions and total emissions of RCP2.6 and RCP8.5 scenarios, respectively. C) Time series of global warming associated with each scenario of A and B. The coloured band denotes the standard deviation of 600 probabilistic/historically constrained runs, whereas the solid black line denotes median global warming.
Table 1.
Examples of CO2 emissions as a function of specific actions.
Values are presented in terms of net emission and percentages of the personal quota.