IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcom/v16y2025i1d10.1038_s41467-025-62947-9.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Effect of discontinuous fair-share emissions allocations immediately based on equity

Author

Listed:
  • Yann Robiou du Pont

    (Utrecht University
    The University of Bergen)

  • Mark Dekker

    (Utrecht University
    PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency)

  • Detlef van Vuuren

    (Utrecht University
    PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency)

  • Michiel Schaeffer

    (Utrecht University
    Climate Analytics
    Universitas Islam Internasional Indonesia)

Abstract

National emissions targets are collectively insufficient to align with the Paris Agreement. The fair-share literature assesses whether these targets are fair and ambitious in comparison to emissions trajectories based on equity principles. Such emissions trajectories commonly start at present-day emissions levels. Here we show that these continuous trajectories inherently reward past inaction and increasingly do so with their iterative updates. We provide an approach to allocating emissions trajectories based on equity principles applied with immediate effect. The resulting discontinuous national trajectories not starting at current emissions levels imply significant immediate international support to fund rapid mitigation globally. Modelling allocations with or without continuity has remarkable consequences for the relative implied contributions to international support among high-income countries. We find that emissions targets of G7 countries, Russia and China are responsible for most of the global 2030 ambition gap, while only some countries align with their 1.5 °C allocation.

Suggested Citation

  • Yann Robiou du Pont & Mark Dekker & Detlef van Vuuren & Michiel Schaeffer, 2025. "Effect of discontinuous fair-share emissions allocations immediately based on equity," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 16(1), pages 1-13, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:16:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-025-62947-9
    DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-62947-9
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-62947-9
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/s41467-025-62947-9?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jocelyn Timperley, 2021. "The broken $100-billion promise of climate finance — and how to fix it," Nature, Nature, vol. 598(7881), pages 400-402, October.
    2. Pan, Xunzhang & Elzen, Michel den & Höhne, Niklas & Teng, Fei & Wang, Lining, 2017. "Exploring fair and ambitious mitigation contributions under the Paris Agreement goals," Environmental Science & Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 49-56.
    3. Céline Guivarch & Thomas Gallic & Nico Bauer & Panagiotis Fragkos & Daniel Huppmann & Marc Jaxa-Rozen & Ilkka Keppo & Elmar Kriegler & Tamás Krisztin & Giacomo Marangoni & Steve Pye & Keywan Riahi & R, 2022. "Using large ensembles of climate change mitigation scenarios for robust insights," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 12(5), pages 428-435, May.
    4. Yann Robiou du Pont & M. Louise Jeffery & Johannes Gütschow & Joeri Rogelj & Peter Christoff & Malte Meinshausen, 2017. "Correction: Corrigendum: Equitable mitigation to achieve the Paris Agreement goals," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 7(2), pages 153-153, February.
    5. Karl W. Steininger & Christian Lininger & Lukas H. Meyer & Pablo Muñoz & Thomas Schinko, 2016. "Multiple carbon accounting to support just and effective climate policies," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 6(1), pages 35-41, January.
    6. Mark B. Budolfson & David Anthoff & Francis Dennig & Frank Errickson & Kevin Kuruc & Dean Spears & Navroz K. Dubash, 2021. "Utilitarian benchmarks for emissions and pledges promote equity, climate and development," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 11(10), pages 827-833, October.
    7. Thibault Briera & Julien Lefèvre, 2024. "Reducing the cost of capital through international climate finance to accelerate the renewable energy transition in developing countries," Post-Print hal-04824002, HAL.
    8. Kevin Anderson & John F. Broderick & Isak Stoddard, 2020. "A factor of two: how the mitigation plans of ‘climate progressive’ nations fall far short of Paris-compliant pathways," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(10), pages 1290-1304, November.
    9. Bård Lahn, 2018. "In the light of equity and science: scientific expertise and climate justice after Paris," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 18(1), pages 29-43, February.
    10. Yann Robiou du Pont & Malte Meinshausen, 2018. "Warming assessment of the bottom-up Paris Agreement emissions pledges," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 9(1), pages 1-10, December.
    11. Claire L. Fyson & Susanne Baur & Matthew Gidden & Carl-Friedrich Schleussner, 2020. "Fair-share carbon dioxide removal increases major emitter responsibility," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 10(9), pages 836-841, September.
    12. M. Calcaterra & L. Aleluia Reis & P. Fragkos & T. Briera & H. S. Boer & F. Egli & J. Emmerling & G. Iyer & S. Mittal & F. H. J. Polzin & M. W. J. L. Sanders & T. S. Schmidt & A. Serebriakova & B. Stef, 2024. "Reducing the cost of capital to finance the energy transition in developing countries," Nature Energy, Nature, vol. 9(10), pages 1241-1251, October.
    13. Mark M. Dekker & Andries F. Hof & Yann Robiou Pont & Nicole Berg & Vassilis Daioglou & Michel Elzen & Rik Heerden & Elena Hooijschuur & Isabela Schmidt Tagomori & Chantal Würschinger & Detlef P. Vuure, 2025. "Navigating the black box of fair national emissions targets," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 15(7), pages 752-759, July.
    14. Malte Meinshausen & Louise Jeffery & Johannes Guetschow & Yann Robiou du Pont & Joeri Rogelj & Michiel Schaeffer & Niklas Höhne & Michel den Elzen & Sebastian Oberthür & Nicolai Meinshausen, 2015. "National post-2020 greenhouse gas targets and diversity-aware leadership," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 5(12), pages 1098-1106, December.
    15. Malte Meinshausen & Jared Lewis & Christophe McGlade & Johannes Gütschow & Zebedee Nicholls & Rebecca Burdon & Laura Cozzi & Bernd Hackmann, 2022. "Realization of Paris Agreement pledges may limit warming just below 2 °C," Nature, Nature, vol. 604(7905), pages 304-309, April.
    16. Yann Robiou du Pont & M. Louise Jeffery & Johannes Gütschow & Joeri Rogelj & Peter Christoff & Malte Meinshausen, 2017. "Equitable mitigation to achieve the Paris Agreement goals," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 7(1), pages 38-43, January.
    17. Briera, Thibault & Lefèvre, Julien, 2024. "Reducing the cost of capital through international climate finance to accelerate the renewable energy transition in developing countries," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 188(C).
    18. H. Damon Matthews, 2016. "Quantifying historical carbon and climate debts among nations," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 6(1), pages 60-64, January.
    19. Lavanya Rajamani & Louise Jeffery & Niklas Höhne & Frederic Hans & Alyssa Glass & Gaurav Ganti & Andreas Geiges, 2021. "National ‘fair shares’ in reducing greenhouse gas emissions within the principled framework of international environmental law," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(8), pages 983-1004, September.
    20. Sivan Kartha & Tom Athanasiou & Simon Caney & Elizabeth Cripps & Kate Dooley & Navroz K. Dubash & Teng Fei & Paul G. Harris & Ceecee Holz & Bård Lahn & Darrel Moellendorf & Benito Müller & J. Timmons , 2018. "Cascading biases against poorer countries," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 8(5), pages 348-349, May.
    21. Kate Dooley & Ceecee Holz & Sivan Kartha & Sonja Klinsky & J. Timmons Roberts & Henry Shue & Harald Winkler & Tom Athanasiou & Simon Caney & Elizabeth Cripps & Navroz K. Dubash & Galen Hall & Paul G. , 2021. "Ethical choices behind quantifications of fair contributions under the Paris Agreement," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 11(4), pages 300-305, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ceecee Holz & Guy Cunliffe & Kennedy Mbeva & Pieter W. Pauw & Harald Winkler, 2023. "Tempering and enabling ambition: how equity is considered in domestic processes preparing NDCs," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 23(3), pages 271-292, September.
    2. Mingyu Li & Setu Pelz & Robin Lamboll & Can Wang & Joeri Rogelj, 2025. "A principle-based framework to determine countries’ fair warming contributions to the Paris Agreement," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 16(1), pages 1-13, December.
    3. Thomas Hahn & Johannes Morfeldt & Robert Höglund & Mikael Karlsson & Ingo Fetzer, 2024. "Estimating countries’ additional carbon accountability for closing the mitigation gap based on past and future emissions," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-10, December.
    4. Karl W. Steininger & Keith Williges & Lukas H. Meyer & Florian Maczek & Keywan Riahi, 2022. "Sharing the effort of the European Green Deal among countries," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-13, December.
    5. Salekpay, Foroogh, 2021. "Distributing the European Union Greenhouse Gas emission 2030," Working Papers 2072/534909, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Department of Economics.
    6. Chen, Hao & Qi, Shaozhou & Zhang, Jihong, 2022. "Towards carbon neutrality with Chinese characteristics: From an integrated perspective of economic growth-equity-environment," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 324(C).
    7. Jiang, Hong-Dian & Purohit, Pallav & Liang, Qiao-Mei & Dong, Kangyin & Liu, Li-Jing, 2022. "The cost-benefit comparisons of China's and India's NDCs based on carbon marginal abatement cost curves," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).
    8. Tan, Xianchun & Cai, Xiaoli & Cheng, Yonglong & Yan, Hongshuo, 2024. "How to control China's total amount of carbon emissions? An analysis of provincial allowance demands," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 303(C).
    9. Oliver Herrera & Olga Alcaraz & Bàrbara Sureda, 2025. "Analysis of fairness and ambition considerations in nationally determined contributions," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 25(3), pages 359-378, September.
    10. Ding, Qingguo & Wang, Jianxiao & Zhang, Bing & Yu, Yang, 2023. "Economic burden of China's fairness regulations on power generation sector," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 278(C).
    11. Philipp Censkowsky & Paul Waidelich & Igor Shishlov & Bjarne Steffen, 2025. "Quantifying the shift of public export finance from fossil fuels to renewable energy," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 16(1), pages 1-13, December.
    12. Magdalena Zioło & Iwona Bąk & Anna Spoz, 2025. "The Nexus Between Green Bonds, Green Credits, and the Energy Transition Toward Renewable Energy Sources: State of the Art," Energies, MDPI, vol. 18(16), pages 1-21, August.
    13. Welsch, Heinz, 2025. "Are national climate change mitigation pledges shaped by citizens' mitigation preferences? Evidence from globally representative data," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 230(C).
    14. Yu Liu & Mingxi Du & Qi Cui & Jintai Lin & Yawen Liu & Qiuyu Liu & Dan Tong & Kuishuang Feng & Klaus Hubacek, 2022. "Contrasting suitability and ambition in regional carbon mitigation," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-9, December.
    15. Auriane Meilland & Yann Kervinio & Aurélie Méjean, 2024. "International Climate Justice: What the People Think," Post-Print hal-04825108, HAL.
    16. Biying Yu & Zihao Zhao & Yi-Ming Wei & Lan-Cui Liu & Qingyu Zhao & Shuo Xu & Jia-Ning Kang & Hua Liao, 2023. "Approaching national climate targets in China considering the challenge of regional inequality," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-12, December.
    17. Dominic Lenzi & Michael Jakob & Matthias Honegger & Susanne Droege & Jennifer C. Heyward & Tim Kruger, 2021. "Equity implications of net zero visions," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 169(3), pages 1-15, December.
    18. Leal Silva, Jean Felipe & Nogueira, Luiz Augusto Horta & Cantarella, Heitor & Rossetto, Raffaella & Maciel Filho, Rubens & Souza, Glaucia Mendes, 2025. "Meta-data analysis of biofuels in emerging markets of Africa and Asia: Greenhouse gas savings and economic feasibility," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 213(C).
    19. Khabbazan, Mohammad M. & von Hirschhausen, Christian, 2021. "The implication of the Paris targets for the Middle East through different cooperation options," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    20. Chepeliev, Maksym & Diachuk, Oleksandr & Podolets, Roman & Trypolska, Galyna, 2021. "The role of bioenergy in Ukraine's climate mitigation policy by 2050," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:16:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-025-62947-9. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.