The Paris Agreement has set the collective goal to hold the increase in global average temperature to well below 2°C and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C. This will require global peaking of greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible and a rapid reduction to achieve a balance between anthropogenic emissions and removals by sinks in the second half of the century. A number of countries, regions, cities and companies, including members of the 2050 Pathways Platform, have started charting their long-term low-greenhouse gas development strategies in that spirit. Others are also embarking on this exercise, facing the challenge of an uncertainty-ridden, multi-dimensional quantification exercise combined with the need to generate a long-term pathway, one that reflects a variety of socio-economic objectives and different stakeholders’ interests in order to pave the way for robust policy choices.

Mid-century pathways, a response to the Paris Agreement’s Article 4.19 call on Parties to elaborate long-term low greenhouse gas development strategies, are an opportunity to explore long-term policy and technology options without the constraints of near-term inertia. The proposed 2050 pathways methodology will nevertheless also help governments and organisations identify important decision to be taken in the near-to medium-term to deliver on their long-term ambition.