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Footnotes for the Summary for Policymakers of IPCC Working Group III

Source & © IPCC TAR SPM of WG III 

1 Mitigation is defined here as an anthropogenic intervention to reduce the sources of greenhouse gases or enhance their sinks.

2 Climate change in IPCC usage refers to any change in climate over time, whether due to natural variability or as a result of human activity. This usage differs from that in the UNFCCC, where climate change refers to a change of climate that is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and that is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods.

3 Section numbers refer to the main body of the Report.

4 In this report “alternative development paths” refer to a variety of possible scenarios for societal values and consumption and production patterns in all countries, including but not limited to a continuation of today’s trends. These paths do not include additional climate initiatives which means that no scenarios are included that explicitly assume implementation of the UNFCCC or the emission targets of the Kyoto Protocol, but do include assumptions about other policies that influence greenhouse gas emissions indirectly.

5 Approaches to equity have been classified into a variety of categories, including those based on allocation, outcome, process, rights, liability, poverty, and opportunity, reflecting the diverse expectations of fairness used to judge policy processes and the corresponding outcomes (Sections 1.3, 10.2).

6 Emissions from all regions diverge from baselines at some point. Global emissions diverge earlier and to a greater extent as stabilization levels are lower or underlying scenarios are higher. Such scenarios are uncertain, do not provide information on equity implications and how such changes may be achieved or who may bear any costs incurred.

7 Reserves are those occurrences that are identified and measured as economically and technically recoverable with current technologies and prices. Resources are those occurrences with less certain geological and/or economic characteristics, but which are considered potentially recoverable with foreseeable technological and economic developments. The resource base includes both categories. On top of that, there are additional quantities with unknown certainty of occurrence and/or with unknown or no economic significance in the foreseeable future, referred to as “additional occurrences” (SAR, Working Group II). Examples of unconventional fossil fuel resources include tar sands, shale oil, other heavy oil, coal bed methane, deep geopressured gas, gas in acquifers, etc.

8 “Known technological options” refer to technologies that exist in operation or pilot plant stage today, as referenced in the mitigation scenarios discussed in this report. It does not include any new technologies that will require drastic technological breakthroughs. In this way it can be considered to be a conservative estimate, considering the length of the scenario period.

9 Ancillary benefits are the ancillary, or side effects, of policies aimed exclusively at climate change mitigation. Such policies have an impact not only on greenhouse gas emissions, but also on resource use efficiency, like reduction in emissions of local and regional air pollutants associated with fossil fuel use, and on issues such as transportation, agriculture, land-use practices, employment, and fuel security. Sometimes these benefits are referred to as “ancillary impacts” to reflect that in some cases the benefits may be negative.

10 In this report, as in the SAR, no regrets opportunities are defined as those options whose benefits such as reduced energy costs and reduced emissions of local/regional pollutants equal or exceed their costs to society, excluding the benefits of avoided climate change.

11 A voluntary agreement is an agreement between a government authority and one or more private parties, as well as a unilateral commitment that is recognized by the public authority, to achieve environmental objectives or to improve environmental performance beyond compliance.

12 Many other studies incorporating more precisely the country specifics and diversity of targeted policies provide a wider range of net cost estimates (Section 8.2.2).

13 Annex II countries: Group of countries included in Annex II to the UNFCCC, including all developed countries in the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development.

14 Annex B countries: Group of countries included in Annex B in the Kyoto Protocol that have agreed to a target for their greenhouse gas emissions, including all the Annex I countries (as amended in 1998) but Turkey and Belarus.

15 Many metrics can be used to present costs. For example, if the annual costs to developed countries associated with meeting Kyoto targets with full Annex B trading are in the order of 0.5% of GDP, this represents US$125 billion (1000 million) per year, or US$125 per person per year by 2010 in Annex II (SRES assumptions). This corresponds to an impact on economic growth rates over ten years of less than 0.1 percentage point.

16 Induced technological change is an emerging field of inquiry. None of the literature reviewed in TAR on the relationship between the century-scale CO2 concentrations and costs, reported results for models employing induced technological change. Models with induced technological change under some circumstances show that century-scale concentrations can differ, with similar GDP growth but under different policy regimes (Section 8.4.1.4).

17 See Figure SPM.1 for the influence of reference scenarios on the magnitude of the required mitigation effort to reach a given stabilization level.

18 Spillover effects incorporate only economic effects, not environmental effects.

19 Details of the six studies reviewed are found in Table 9.4 of the underlying report.

20 These estimated costs can be expressed as differences in GDP growth rates over the period 2000–2010. With no emissions trading, GDP growth rate is reduced by 0.02 percentage points/year; with Annex B emissions trading, growth rate is reduced by less than 0.005 percentage points/year.

21 These policies and measures include: those for non-CO2 gases and non-energy sources of all gases; offsets from sinks; industry restructuring (e.g., from energy producer to supplier of energy services); use of OPEC’s market power; and actions (e.g. of Annex B Parties) related to funding, insurance, and the transfer of technology. In addition, the studies typically do not include the following policies and effects that can reduce the total cost of mitigation: the use of tax revenues to reduce tax burdens or finance other mitigation measures; environmental ancillary benefits of reductions in fossil fuel use; and induced technological change from mitigation policies.

22 Carbon leakage is defined here as the increase in emissions in non-Annex B countries due to implementation of reductions in Annex B, expressed as a percentage of Annex B reductions.

Source & © IPCC TAR SPM of WG III 

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