Global emissions scenarios play a critical role in the assessment of strategies to mitigate climate change. The current scenarios, however, are criticized because they feature strategies with pronounced overshoot of the global temperature goal, requiring a long-term repair phase to draw temperatures down again through net-negative emissions. Some impacts might not be reversible. Hence, we explore a new set of net-zero CO2 emissions scenarios with limited overshoot. We show that upfront investments are needed in the near term for limiting temperature overshoot but that these would bring long-term economic gains. Our study further identifies alternative configurations of net-zero CO2 emissions systems and the roles of different sectors and regions for balancing sources and sinks. Even without net-negative emissions, CO2 removal is important for accelerating near-term reductions and for providing an anthropogenic sink that can offset the residual emissions in sectors that are hard to abate. Current emissions scenarios include pathways that overshoot the temperature goals set out in the Paris Agreement and rely on future net negative emissions. Limiting overshoot would require near-term investment but would result in longer-term economic benefit.
On Jan 15th, the Quebec government called on the federal government to reverse these changes to EI and do an assessment of their impact before reinstating any changes. They are concerned about the downward pressure on wages, and increases in social assistance rates as unemployed workers are cut off benefits and have no available employment.
This response from the Quebec government follows a huge protest in Îles-de-la-Madeleine on January 13th, where over 4,000 people came out to protest the changes to Employment Insurance.
MPs from PEI are hearing broad concerns, and are tracking them so that they can be shared with Minister Finley.