What Needs to Happen to Reach Low Climate Targets

As most faculty know, reaching low climate targets requires radical transformations of the energy sector.  While decarbonizing the energy sector is a necessary step towards low climate targets, reaching low climate targets requires much more than conversion to renewables.  In addition, reductions in energy, land and resource demand, improvements in technologies for the difficult-to-mitigate CO2 emission sectors (e.g. aviation, concrete), as well as developments in carbon dioxide removal are required to meet the low carbon/climate targets. A review of the literature in terms of what areas need more research, and estimates of innovations required is provided, in order to help understand the prioritization of research.

Biography: Natalie Mahowald is the Irving Porter Church Professor of Engineering at Cornell University  as well as the co-lead on the Reducing Climate Risk Working Group from Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability.  Her research focuses on modeling natural feedbacks in the earth system, especially associated with aerosols, climate and biogeochemistry.  She was a lead author on two of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Report, including the 2018 report on keeping temperatures below 1.5C.