Jeffrey Sachs and others have built a global scenario showing what the future could look like if governments stick to their commitment made 5 years ago to keep the atmosphere from warming by more than 2 degrees Celsius (above pre-industrial, late 19th-century levels). The Sachs/UN Report Pathways to Deep Carbonization 2014 notes that the two biggest players are the US which emits 14% of carbon dioxide, and China which emits 27%. The NYT sets out some implications of the scenario:
“To do so, CO2 emissions from industry and energy use would have to fall to at most 1.6 tons a year for every person on the planet by midcentury. That is less than a tenth of annual American emissions per person today and less than a third of the world average...
Within about 15 years every new car sold in the United States will be electric. In fact, by midcentury more than half of the American economy will run on electricity. Up to 60 percent of power might come from nuclear sources. And coal’s footprint will shrink drastically, perhaps even disappear from the power supply...”
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