1.5.2 Roadmap

This report assesses options for mitigating climate change. It has four major parts, A–D.

Part A comprises Chapter 1, an Introduction and Chapter 2, which is on ‘framing issues’. Chapter 2 introduces the report’s cross-cutting themes, which are listed above, and outlines how these themes are treated in subsequent chapters. It also introduces important concepts (e.g. cost-benefit analysis and regional integration) and defines important terms used throughout the report.

Part B consists of one chapter, Chapter 3. This chapter reviews and analyzes baseline (non-mitigation) and stabilization scenarios in the literature that have appeared since the publications of the IPCC SRES and the TAR. It pays particular attention to the literature that criticizes the IPCC SRES scenarios and concludes that uncertainties and baseline emissions have not changed very much. It discusses the driving forces for GHG emissions and mitigation in the short and medium terms and emphasizes the role of technology relative to social, economic and institutional inertia. It also examines the relation between adaptation, mitigation and avoided climate change damage in the light of decision-making on atmospheric GHG concentrations (Article 2 UNFCCC).

Part C consists of seven chapters, each of which assesses sequence mitigation options in different sectors. Chapter 4 addresses the energy supply sector, including carbon capture and storage; Chapter 5 transport and associated infrastructures; Chapter 6 the residential, commercial and service sectors; Chapter 7 the industrial sector, including internal recycling and the reuse of industrial wastes; Chapters 8 and 9 the agricultural and forestry sectors, respectively, including land use and biological carbon sequestration; Chapter 10 waste management, post-consumer recycling and reuse.

These seven chapters use a common template and cover all relevant aspects of GHG mitigation, including costs, mitigation potentials, policies, technology development, technology transfer, mitigation aspects of the three dimensions of sustainable development, system changes and long-term options. They provide the integrated picture that was absent in the TAR. Where supporting literature is available, they address important differences across regions.

Part D comprises three chapters (11–13) that focus on major cross-sectoral considerations. Chapter 11 assesses the aggregated short-/medium-term mitigation potential, macro-economic impacts, economic instruments, technology development and transfer and cross-border influences (or spill-over effects). Chapter 12 links climate mitigation with sustainable development and assesses the GHG emission impacts of implementing the Millennium Development Goals and other sustainable development policies and targets. Chapter 13 assesses domestic climate policy instruments and the interaction between domestic climate policies and various forms of international cooperation and reviews climate change as a global common issue in the context of sustainable development objectives and policies. It summarizes relevant treaties, cooperative development agreements, private–public partnerships and private sector initiatives and their relationship to climate objectives.