Equity Assessment of Global Mitigation Pathways in the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report

The remaining carbon budget to restrict warming levels to 1.5℃ or 2℃ is limited and rapidly being depleted, making the assessment of potential mitigation pathways for policymaking for the future, both important and challenging. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 6th Assessment Report (AR6) relies heavily on modelled mitigation pathways to assess policy-relevant outcomes. In this paper, we analyse 556 model scenarios assessed by IPCC’s Working Group-III for the 6th Assessment Report, which have an underlying 10-region classification and correspond to restricting warming levels to 1.5℃ and 2 ℃. Our results show that the IPCC AR6 scenarios disregard both the historical responsibility of the global North for carbon emissions as well as the future energy needs of the global South required to meet developmental goals. The burden of climate change mitigation is placed squarely on developing countries, while developed countries continue to increase their energy consumption unhindered by constraints on the use of fossil fuels. Our analysis clearly underlines the need for new frameworks for emissions modelling, scenario building, and constructing ideas of a future that makes the planet “liveable” for all and not just some sections of the global population.