Policy Brief: Climate Change: Meeting the Challenge to 2050

Climate change is already with us. Scientific evidence shows that past emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) are already affecting the Earth’s climate. If current trends and policies continue, the result will be a rapidly warming world. Action is needed now to significantly reduce global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the coming decades.

If governments fail to act, or delay adopting the necessary policies, the likely consequences and costs of this policy inaction will be significant. Without further policies to combat climate change, the OECD projects GHG emissions will grow by about 50% by 2050. This would raise the global temperature by between 1.5 °C and 3.4 °C compared to pre-industrial levels – at least twice the temperature increase seen between 1899 and 2005.

In contrast, starting today to implement policies could deliver by 2050 a reduction of 40% or more in GHG emissions compared to 2000 levels, and could move emissions onto a pathway that would stabilise atmospheric concentrations at low levels and significantly limit the risk of the worst of climate change impacts in the long-term.

Over the past decade, governments have developed an international framework for action on climate change, and many countries have implemented policies to address it.

While this experience will be invaluable as a base for developing future climate policies and a post-2012 framework for tackling climate change internationally, the current actions are insufficient to significantly slow the progress of climate change.

This Policy Brief highlights the OECD’s work on the likely impact of various courses of action to mitigate climate change, and the costs of inaction.