Developed countries aggregate reductions 7-13% below 1990 levels by 2020

The developed country industrial emission reductions targets assessed here as a whole are estimated to be 11-19% below 1990 levels by 2020. However, the proposed forestry credits these countries want would degrade this by about 5% points. This would bring the effective reductions in industrial GHG emissions to about 6-14% below 1990 levels by 2020. The low reduction target (6%) is based on unconditional targets for most countries and the highest reduction target (14%) is linked by most countries to a strong agreement in Copenhagen. Around 25-40% reductions by industrialized countries by 2020 from 1990 GHG emissions levels are described as necessary by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Currently projected emissions for the 2008-2012 period by Annex I countries as a whole are less than their aggregate targets (allowed emissions) under the Kyoto Protocol in its first commitment period (2008-2012). Under Kyoto Protocol rules, surplus 'assigned amount units' (AAUs - allowed emissions) from this period may be carried over to subsequent commitment periods and hence be used to increase effective emissions allowances after 2012. The total amount of surplus AAUs is large enough to allow the Annex I countries as a group to follow a business-as-usual emission pathway until after 2020 (longer after 2020 for the lowest end of the Copenhagen reduction proposals), while still complying with the currently announced reduction targets. This implies that overall emissions of the developed countries would be only 3% below 1990 levels by 2020 (about equal to business as usual). Given these currently existing rules and provisions of the Kyoto Protocol, we have assumed that all surplus AAUs would ultimately be emitted to the atmosphere in our climate model projections. Once these are exhausted (shortly after 2020), Annex I countries emissions are assumed to revert from their business-as-usual projection to the allowed emission reduction pathway, including the assumed forest credits. If the amount of surplus AAUs from the first and/or subsequent commitment periods were to be limited as part of a new agreement on mitigating global warming, we will include that in an update of our analysis.