The Importance of Increasing Actual INDCs’ Ambitions to Meet The

Paris Agreement Temperature Targets

An Innovative Fuzzy Logic Approach to Temperature Control and Climate

Assessment using FACTS

Carlos Gay y Garcia

1,2

and Bernardo A. Bastien Olvera

Centro de Ciencias de la Atm

osfera, Universidad Nacional Aut

onoma de M

exico, Ciudad de M

exico, Mexico

Programa de Investigaci

on en Cambio Clim

atico, Universidad Nacional Aut

onoma de M

exico, Ciudad de M

exico, Mexico

Keywords:

Climate Change, Temperature Stabilization, Carbon Emissions, INDCs, Fuzzy Logic, Fuzzy Control.

Abstract:

This work presents an alternative assessment of climate projections using FACTS (Bastien and Gay, 2016),

based on possible future emissions pathways related to the Intended National Determined Contributions pre-

sented in 2015 as part of the Paris Agreement on climate change. Moreover it proposes emission reductions

in order to stabilize the climate to the desired levels proposed by the international community. Ultimately,

it shows the importance of the emissions pathways that the world could take in the crucial period of time

2020-2030. FACTS uses a fuzzy logic approach to solve this physical problem, aware of it dependence on the

complexity of climate diplomacy.

1 INTRODUCTION

Climate models have widely projected different sce-

narios under assumptions of a warmer world (Rahm-

storf and Coumou, 2011; Silliman et al., 2013), how-

ever due to the great uncertainty and the natural conti-

nuity of change in climatic variables, it would be un-

realistic to propose a warming limit that prevent hu-

man and ecosystem collapse. On the other hand, in

order to promote international mobilization toward re-

ducing greenhouse gases emissions, in 2009 was con-

venient to set the goal of not exceeding 2

◦

C the av-

erage global temperature above pre-industrial levels

(UNFCCC, 2010).

Under the imminent decision of the 2 degrees

goal, research groups were dedicated to identify sta-

bilization routes consistent with the limit (Baer et al.,

2009; Bossetti et al., 2010; den Elzen et al., 2010;

Edenhofer et al., 2010; van Vuuren et al., 2011),

while other groups estimated future projected emis-

sions from international agreements and existing en-

ergy structures (Riahi et al., 2007; Rogelj et al., 2013;

Clarke et al., 2009; Davis et al., 2010), with this, the

United Nations Environment Programme made the

ﬁrst emissions gap report (UNEP, 2010), which shows

how well the actual policy ﬁts the temperature stabi-

lization goals and elaborates on the efforts that need

to be made in future negotiations.

Since that time, it have been developed method-

ologies to ﬁnd emissions pathways that stabilize

global average temperature. Currently, the state of the

art is to ﬁnd the most efﬁcient mitigation strategies in

economic, energetic and social terms, differentiating

between global and regional scales (Belenky, 2015;

Rogelj et al., 2013; Garg et al., 2014). Nevertheless,

in this moment is clearly set a whole new international

structure based on domestic pledges that demand un-

derstandable methodologies for their analysis in order

to spread the urgency of proposing more ambitious

goals. In that context, our work presents an alternative

approach and methodology for facing this challenge.

This study uses ’FACTS: Fuzzy Assessment and

Control for Temperature Stabilization’ (Bastien and

Gay, 2016) which is a fuzzy controller and evalu-

ator that uses the output variables of a simple cli-

mate model in an speciﬁc time i (temperature, CO

emissions, CO

concentration, temperature change),

and give as an output the change in emissions that

would need to be made in the subsequent year i + 1

in order to stabilize the climate. We use the FACTS-

assessment to present the fuzzy evaluation of possible

climate states under different emissions pathways be-

tween 2016-2030. Moreover, the FACTS-control was

triggered in 2030 in order to stabilize the average tem-

García, C. and Olvera, B.

The Importance of Increasing Actual INDCs’ Ambitions to Meet The Paris Agreement Temperature Targets - An Innovative Fuzzy Logic Approach to Temperature Control and Climate

Assessment using FACTS.

DOI: 10.5220/0006014703630367

In Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Simulation and Modeling Methodologies, Technologies and Applications (SIMULTECH 2016), pages 363-367

ISBN: 978-989-758-199-1

363

perature according to the Paris Agreement (UNFCC,

2015).

Finally it was made a comparison between the

FACTS’ stabilization pathways and the inertial emis-

sions routes, which remarks the importance of more

ambitious pre-2030 mitigation efforts.

2 DATA ANALYSIS AND

CLIMATE STATES

The core instrument of the Paris Agreement for cli-

mate change mitigation are the Intended National De-

termined Contributions (INDC), a set of nationally

projected greenhouse gases emission trajectories from

2020 to 2030. Since every country has different type

and quality of information, the INDCs are expressed

in heterogeneous ways: relative to a baseline, relative

to historical data, or as reduction goals.

There have been several works that integrates and

analyse the INDCs in order to create global green-

house gases emissions pathways and project the pos-

sible future climate (AGCEC, 2015; CI, 2015; DEA,

2015; Kitous and Keramidas, 2015; IEA, 2015; Boyd

et al., 2015; Spencer and Pierfederici, 2015)

In this study, we used the analysis made by Cli-

mate Interactive [CI], which states possible pathways

that cover different scenarios of global commitment,

where the current INDCs pledges are the worst case

(INDC Strict), and the best case is a success in the

climate change mitigation that stabilizes the tempera-

ture in 1.5

◦

C (Ratchet Success), plus four more sce-

narios that lie between the mentioned above in terms

of emissions intensity (Ratchet 1, Ratchet 2, Ratchet

3, 2 degrees pathway). The INDC Strict scenario is

described as the integration of the INDCs pledges as

of December 13th 2015, where CO

changes apply to

e except for China, supposing no commitment af-

ter 2030 and using RCP8.5 emissions; while Ratchet

Success is the scenario on track through 2020 to ful-

ﬁll INDC pledges, thereafter, all developed countries

reduce to 45% below 2005 levels by 2030 and 80%

below 2005 levels by 2050, continuing the rates of de-

cline through 2100. China peaks in 2025, all other de-

veloping countries peak in 2027, decline 2% annually

through 2040 and then 4% annually through 2100.

Taking these emissions scenarios, we used MAG-

ICC 6 (Meinshausen et al., 2011) to project the cli-

mate and make an assessment with FACTS (Bastien

and Gay, 2016), an easy-to-use tool that classiﬁes the

climate variables into fuzzy sets that altogether cre-

ate fuzzy climate states. In Figure 1, are shown the

climate states projection in 2100 under the different

proposed by CI.

Figure 1: FACTS assessment of the climate states in 2100

that result from INDCs and more ambitious emissions path-

ways. Every column represent a single scenario which is

evaluated in terms of its fossil fuel emissions, atmospheric

concentration, temperature and temperature change;

each variable belongs to three linguistically-deﬁned fuzzy

sets in different degree, which is shown in a color scale

and numerically (rounded to decimals): zero is not mem-

bership at all, 1 is full membership. As we can observe,

in 2100 the emissions remain high in the worst scenarios

(INDC Strict, Ratchet 1, Ratchet 2) and decay continuously

to low in the best scenarios (Ratchet 3, 2DP, Ratchet Suc-

cess). As expected, the CO

concentration and temperature

are high in all the scenarios, since those measures are in

terms of a 2 degrees stabilization in 2100. Finally, the last

rows tell us that the temperature keep increasing in the worst

scenarios and remains stable in the best ones. As an exam-

ple of interpretation of the climate state, we could read the

’INDC Strict’ scenario (column on the far left) as follows:

Emissions, Concentration and Temperature are high and the

Temperature keeps increasing, this means no stabilization in

2100 and future temperatures above 2 degrees.

As we can observe in the FACTS climate analy-

sis, the higher-emissions routes (INDC Strict, Ratchet

1 and Ratchet 2) lead to climate states in 2100 of

high emissions, high concentrations, high tempera-

ture and low temperature increment. While the lower-

emissions routes (Ratchet 3, 2-Degrees Pathway and

Ratchet Success) lead to medium-low emissions, high

concentration, high temperature and to the crucial null

temperature change. We will further discuss the im-

portance of having a different instrument for the Earth

climate state visualization, rather than the unrealistic

precise number that describes the increment of the av-

erage global temperature above pre-industrial levels.

MSCCES 2016 - Special Session on Applications of Modeling and Simulation to Climatic Change and Environmental Sciences

364

Figure 2: The dashed lines are the emissions scenarios pro-

posed by Climate Interactive after United Nations pledges

analysis. The shaded yellow area is the envelope of the six

controlled emissions pathways created using FACTS in or-

der to stabilize global average temperature.

3 STABILIZATION ROUTES AND

FINAL CLIMATE STATES

FACTS control reduces the emissions of a certain

baseline in order to stabilize the global average tem-

perature and reach an stable climate state. In this ex-

periment, FACTS control was applied every 5 years

starting in 2030, simulating the the new and more am-

bitious communications that need to be made periodi-

cally by all the Parts as stated in the Paris Agreement.

We stabilize the six possible scenarios that range from

the current INDCs to an ideal pathway that lead to the

1.5

◦

C stabilization. In Figure 2 is shown the reduc-

tion that results from FACTS as a yellow shaded area,

which is the envelope of the six stabilization routes

applied to the baseline scenarios.

FACTS needs to be embedded in a climate model

that projects climate parameters as a function of the

control results in order to give a climatic output that

are recycled and serve as an input for FACTS con-

trol. We used MAGICC6 (Meinshausen et al., 2011)

as the core climate model, the results of implement-

ing FACTS can be seen in Figure 3, which shows the

temperature through 2100.

A more complete overview of the climate in 2100

is made by the FACTS-assessment tool (Figure 4),

which shows that not only the temperature, but also

other climate parameters are stable in 2100 after im-

plementing FACTS-control during 70 years every 5

years.

One of the most important characteristics of Fig-

ure 4 is the noticeable color-value homogeneity of the

Figure 3: The dashed lines are the emissions scenarios pro-

posed by Climate Interactive after United Nations pledges

analysis. The shaded yellow area is the envelope of the six

controlled emissions pathways created using FACTS in or-

der to stabilize global average temperature.

rows, which provides an easy visual proof that all sce-

narios were successfully stabilized in very low emis-

sions and concentrations, almost high temperatures

and almost null temperature change. The italics la-

bels are intuitive adjectives that come from a simple

inspection and encompass the uncertain nature of cli-

mate projections, but is still valid.

4 DISCUSSION

A measure of how important is to choose a low emis-

sions pathway before 2030 is the gap that exists in

2040 between the baseline emissions and the con-

trolled ones.

This gap represents the emissions that would need

to be cut to the six baseline emissions in order to

stabilize the climate. For INDC Strict pathway, the

gap is 17.46GtCO

; for the Ratchet 1, the gap is

14.98GtCO

; for Ratchet 2, the gap is 14.46GtCO

;

for Ratchet 3, the gap is 13.01GtCO

; for 2-degrees

Pathway, the gap is 9.30GtCO

; and ﬁnally, for

Ratchet Success, the gap is 7.67GtCO

. Even though

the Ratchet Success should be almost equal to the

stabilization route proposed by FACTS-control, this

does not happens due to the different climate models

used by the data source and this experiment, neverthe-

less, the importance resides in the difference between

the gaps.

On the other hand, we recognize the inﬂuence of

the historical emissions in the efforts of decreasing

certain quantity of emissions per year. In order to

show that inﬂuence we present in Figure 5 the rate of

The Importance of Increasing Actual INDCs’ Ambitions to Meet The Paris Agreement Temperature Targets - An Innovative Fuzzy Logic

Approach to Temperature Control and Climate Assessment using FACTS

365

Figure 4: FACTS assessment of the climate states in 2100

that result from implementing FACTS-control INDCs and

more ambitious emissions pathways. Every column rep-

resent a single scenario which is evaluated in terms of its

fossil fuel emissions, atmospheric CO

concentration, tem-

perature and temperature change; each variable belongs to

three linguistically-deﬁned fuzzy sets in different degree,

which is shown in a color scale and numerically (rounded

to decimals): zero is not membership at all, 1 is full mem-

bership. As we can observe, in 2100 the emissions and con-

centrations are low in every scenario. The temperatures are

somewhat high, relative to the 2 degree limit (which means

that is very close to the 2 degrees, this result is expected

in 2100). Finally, the most important result. This whole

assessment represents a climate stabilization, which means

that the FACTS-control worked well.

emissions change of the different scenarios in 2040,

the slope differences between the rates of change rep-

resent the effort that would need to be made in order to

reduce a unit of emission due to the energetic and eco-

nomical structure that the world has developed until

2030 which is represented in the pre-2030 emissions.

The lines that lie in the right side of the ﬁgure, are

scenarios that represent a world that keeps developing

energetic structures based in fossil fuels and would be

very hard to put on the stabilization track, on the con-

trary, the left side lines are those scenarios which rep-

resent a world that is in the track of clean energies,

and further reductions would be feasible.

5 CONCLUSIONS

This work shows that the INDCs pledges as of De-

cember 2015, will not be sufﬁcient to stabilize the

climate in 2100, nevertheless, it proves that is phys-

ically possible to meet the international climate tar-

gets. And a crucial step on the pursue of this goal is

to immediately revise the proposed INDCs and make

more ambitious reductions before 2030.

Figure 5: Difference between the rate of change in emis-

sions in 2040.

The difference among accomplishing or not the

climate goals, resides in the construction of a com-

mon ground where negotiators and researchers could

interact and understand each other. As presented here,

FACTS play an important role in this prevailing prob-

lem. On one hand FACTS-assessment presents the

climate states which the negotiators need to be look-

ing for, on the other hand, FACTS-control presents

the pathways that the world need to follow in order to

accomplish those climate states.

Much more work need to be done in the develop-

ment of this new and more easy ways to present and

model the climate change, however, as presented in

this study, the alternative methodologies are up to the

classical methods currently used by the most of inter-

national community, and moreover,they are crucial in

creating an efﬁcient communication bridge that closes

the gap between different actors in the climate change

mitigation challenge.

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The Importance of Increasing Actual INDCs’ Ambitions to Meet The Paris Agreement Temperature Targets - An Innovative Fuzzy Logic

Approach to Temperature Control and Climate Assessment using FACTS

367