The impact of carbon neutrality timing on climate extremes in East Asia

Carbon neutrality is an essential approach for the mitigation of climate change and plays a key role in the implementation of the Paris Agreement. This study analyzes future climate change in East Asia using carbon neutrality scenarios(Shared Socioeconomic Pathways SSP1-1.9, SSP1-2.6, SSP4-3.4, and SSP5-3.4-OS) and evaluates how earlier carbon neutrality could mitigate the impact of extreme climate events. Using carbon neutrality scenarios and indices of temperature and precipitation based on ETCCDI(Expert Team an Climate Detection and Indices), we analyzes frequency and intensity of climate extremes.  Furthermore, we defined the Fraction of Avoidable Impact(FAI) to evaluate the extent of impact that can be avoided when achieving carbon neutrality, similar to the SSP1-1.9 scenario. For the extreme temperature, FAI values of intensity(frequency) were projected to be approximately 33-42%(33-35%) in the SSP1-2.6 scenario and 49-54%(49-53%) in the SSP4-3.4 scenario, indicating a relatively larger increase in intensity.  In the case of extreme precipitation, FAI values of intensity(frequency) were projected to be about 25%(26-31%) in the SSP1-2.6 scenario and 40%(38-47%) in the SSP4-3.4 scenario, showing a similar trend of relatively larger increase in intensity as observed for extreme temperature. These findings emphasize that if the timing of achieving carbon neutrality is advanced to align with the Paris Agreement, the impact of climate extremes will be significantly reduced. 

This research was funded by the Korea Meteorological Administration Research and Development Program “Development and Assessment of Climate Change Scenario” under Grant (KMA2018-00321).