Pathways for balancing CO$_2$ emissions and sinks

International audienceIn December 2015 in Paris, leaders committed to achieve global, net decarbonization ofhuman activities before 2100. This achievement would halt and even reverse anthropogenicclimate change through the net removal of carbon from the atmosphere. However, the Parisdocuments contain few specific prescriptions for emissions mitigation, leaving variouscountries to pursue their own agendas. In this analysis, we project energy and land-useemissions mitigation pathways through 2100, subject to best-available parameterization ofcarbon-climate feedbacks and interdependencies. We find that, barring unforeseen andtransformative technological advancement, anthropogenic emissions need to peak within thenext 10 years, to maintain realistic pathways to meeting the COP21 emissions and warmingtargets. Fossil fuel consumption will probably need to be reduced below a quarter of primaryenergy supply by 2100 and the allowable consumption rate drops even further if negativeemissions technologies remain technologically or economically unfeasible at the global scale