The Paris Agreement reflects, in its mitigation aim expressed in Article 2, the intent to limit GHG emissions as required by the best available science. However, the recent Special Report from the IPCC on the Global Warming of 1.5 °C, confirms that the mitigation commitments made by countries, as expressed within their Nationally Determined Contributions, are not only insufficient to achieve the goal, but in fact obstruct it. Simply put, if countries do not update their NDCs with far greater ambition well before 2030, the 1.5°C target with little or no overshoot becomes impossible to achieve.
What can countries do about this? Current planning techniques have proven inadequate so new methodologies must be adopted. As an alternative planning approach, a “Deep Decarbonization” pathway for Mexico is presented, with a general discussion on economy-wide emissions and a more detailed analysis of the Electricity sector.
Daniel Buira is author of several Deep Decarbonization strategies in Latin America, and advises a group of 8 LAC countries at the global climate negotiations. He established the Low Carbon Development unit in Mexico´s Climate Change Institute, led its iNDC work prior to COP21, and has served on the UNFCCC Technology Executive Committee. Previous roles include advisory work in innovation, management consulting and financial services. He holds a PhD in Physics from Oxford University.